pliner Us OONs Beri i Tern 25 
tend to keep close together with their young. Loons fly in straight-line flight 
and only as far as safety dictates. In landing, it hits the water with its chest 
and sends up a splash. 
Loons are a small, discrete group of somewhat primitive water birds that 
show no close affinities to any other avian order. The four species of living 
loons are so similar in structure that they are united into the single genus, 
Gavia. They are among the very few birds whose bones are solid and heavy 
instead of pneumatic. Their specific gravity is close to that of water, and they 
ean increase their gravity enough by expelling air from their bodies and 
under their feathers to sink slowly and quietly beneath the water, leaving 
scarcely a ripple. 
Loons are long-lived. They may survive for 20 to 25 years. Many now 
are destroyed by the waste oils from ships in the coastal waters where they 
winter. In The Audubon Magazine for July-August, 1965, Jack Van Coevering 
tells us that thousands of loons met a mysterious death along the Lake Michi- 
gan shore again last fall during their migration from Canada to the Gulf of 
Mexico. The cause is believed to be a poison known as botulism, type E. 
Scientists are not yet entirely positive. 
It is estimated that 6,820 loons have been killed by the mysterious af- 
fliction in the past two autumns. The Michigan Department of Conservation 
estimates loon losses last autumn as 3,580. This figure is based on a field 
survey of 30 random samples taken over a typical one-to-two-mile stretch of 
shore line and applied to the Upper Michigan shore from the Straits of Mack- 
inack to the Wisconsin border. Investigations are being continued by the 
Fish and Wildlife Service. 
Little is known of the total population of loons. Their migration routes 
are not completely charted. Dr. George J. Wallace, professor of zoology at 
Michigan State University, on hearing of the losses said, ‘‘I didn’t think there 
were that many loons anywhere in North America.”’ 
Loons are accused of eating fish and are sometimes destroyed on that 
account, but it seems evident that they eat few fish of economic value. The 
Common Loon breeds across northern North America, into Greenland and 
Iceland. A few winter in the Great Lakes, but most of them move to salt 
water, to Florida and around the Gulf of Mexico to Texas and along the 
Pacifie Coast. 
927 Brummel Street, Evanston, Illinois 60202 
NESTING RECORDS ARE DUE NOW 
Please complete the record cards for the 1965 NESTING CENSUS and 
send them to our new compiler: MRS. NAOMI McKINNEY, 525 Vine St., 
Arthur, Ill. Mrs. McKinney answered our call for assistance and we are 
delighted to have her take over this most important Census tabulation. 
She is a member of the Decatur Audubon Society, a retired school-teacher, 
long a member of the |.A.S. and an active birder. If you need the Record 
Cards, write to the Illinois State Museum, Springfield, Ill. Do this now: 
it will help our tabulator and the Census itself. 
