GENERAL NOTES. 
Auk, XIII, Jen. , 1890, Pp-77-7 »• 
Do Young Loons eat Fresh-water Clams?—On July 5, 1895, while 
paddling with my brother along the northern end of Lake Utopia, in the 
Province of New Brunswick, we saw near our canoe a young water bird 
which by its size and actions and especially by the cries of its parents near 
by, was proven to be a young Loon, the Great Northern Diver (Urindtor 
imber). Wishing to examine it more closely we chased, and in spite of 
its game efforts to escape, caught it. When near by we noticed something 
hanging to its bill which plainly much retarded its movements and which 
proved to be a fresh-water clam or mussel of two inches in length. 
Closer observation after the bird was carried ashore showed that nearly 
all of its lower bill was gone and that its tongue was caught between the 
tightly-closed valves of the still-living mollusk, and was the means of 
attachment of the one to the other. I cut the tongue close to the shell 
and leleased the bird which went splashing and diving away to rejoin its 
parents, though without tongue or lower bill it could scarcely have 
survived for long. I broke the clam-shell and inside found the missing 
bill with the remainder of the tongue attached. The ragged end of the 
bill made it seem 'plain that having been thrust into the gaping shell, 
which promptly and firmly closed, it had been wrenched and torn off 
by the efforts of the bird to free itself, but the tongue yielding elastically 
to the stiains did not give way. The Loon was a very young one in 
the downy stage with pin-feathers just appearing in the wings. The 
mussel and bill I now have, preserved for the inspection of the curious. 
Since then I have looked in many books for something about the 
feeding habits of Loons but have found nothing. If it is a habit of theirs 
to eat these mussels, my specimen simply began too early ; if not, either it 
was too enterprising or too curious and tried to pick out the inmate from 
its shell gaping open upon the bottom, or else while probing for some¬ 
thing else in the sand it accidentally pushed its lower bill into the 
open shell, with the results above detailed. At all events the incident 
may show something to those fitted to interpret it.— W. F. Ganong, 
Northampton , Mass. 
The Question of the Generic Name Gavia. — In the September, 1900, 
number of the ‘ Ornithologische Monatsberichte ’ (Vol. VIII, page 135), 
Dr. Anton Reichenow claims that the name Gavia Forster is a synonym 
of Urinator Cuvier, basing his assumption on the use of the name Gavia 
for a species of Gull by S. G. Gmelin in his ‘ Reise durch Russland ’ (Vol. 
I, page 152)- _ _ 
An examination of Gmelin’s work shows that he used the name Larus 
for the Gulls systematically throughout his ‘Reise’ and only in one 
instance makes use of the name Gavia , and in this case merely as a quasi 
citation from Brisson, and having no reference whatever to Gavia 
Mohring. The passage in which Gavia is used, so far as it has any bear¬ 
ing on the case in point, is as follows: “ Gavia ridibunda phaenicopos. Die 
Grosse Lach-Move. Sie ist von Brisson schon beschrieben worden, und 
ich babe bey ihr nur zwey Anmerkungen zu machen. Die eine tetrifft 
den Unterschied des Geschlechts, und diese besteht in Schnabel. .. .” 
On referring to Brisson I find in Vol. VI of his ‘ Ornithologie,’ page 
196, that he describes a Gull to which he applies the name Gavia ridi¬ 
bunda phaenicopos , to which Gmelin here refers. Brisson, however, did 
not recognize a genus Gavia , but placed all the Gulls under Larus , begin¬ 
ning in every case his diagnoses “Larus supernse cinereus,” etc., as the 
case might require. Brisson’s genus Larus is his genus “No. CII,” under 
which he has 15 species, the technical name of 5 of which begins with the 
name Larus and the remaining 10 with the name Gavia, an eccentricity 
not confined to the genus Larus , and of no nomenclatural significance 
(see, for example, under Brisson’s genus A user, where Cygnus and Ber- 
nicla are employed in place of Anser). 
The use of the name Gavia by Gmelin is merely in the sense of a refer¬ 
ence to Brisson, he nowhere adopting Gavia in a generic sense for any 
Gull. It is evident, therefore that by no fair construction can Gavia be 
considered as established in a generic sense by S. G. Gmelin in 1770, and 
that it, “therefore, must be considered as a mere synonym of Larus." — 
J. A. Allen, American Museum of Natural History, New York City. 
Auk XVIII, July., 1901, p- 
