DIVER, a name properly restricted in or nithology to birds of the family Colymbide, but applied with little discrimination to vari ous other water-birds of similar habits. The compact, depressed body, powerful, posteriorly placed legs with fully webbed feet, the long sinuous neck and stout acute bill admirably adapt them for aquatic life and the pursuit of fish. They are strong flyers, but on the land are awkward and stand nearly upright. The plum age is peculiarly compact and resistant to water. Three species are well known in the United States. The greath northern diver or loon, Urinator (Colymbus) timber, is a large bird, sometimes attaining a length of three feet. Above the plumage is a lustrous black with green and purple metallic reflections and marked with numerous white spots and streaks; below, a nearly pure white. The loon is distributed throughout the entire northern hemisphere on both fresh and salt waters, and during the win ter is found in all parts of the United States, in the northernmost of which it breeds, building its nest among the rushes near or in the water, and laying as a rule but two eggs. It winters from the southern limit of its breeding range to the Gulf of Mexico. The loon is best known
by the extreme facility with which it dives at the flash of a gun, thus escaping injury while the ball speeds harmlessly overhead, and for its wild resonant cry, about which many traditions and myths have arisen. It can remain several minutes under water and swim 100 yards be fore rising to the surface for air.
The red-throated diver (U. lumme or C. septentrionalis) is eight or nine inches shorter than the loon, of a rusty black, with profuse small white spots above, white below, with a large distinct chestnut-colored patch on the lower part of the throat. It is distributed like the loon, but is rather more northern, and is found in the United States in the winter only. The black-throated diver (U. arcticus) is inter mediate between the other two species, from which it is distinguished by a blue-black neck patch. It is a high northern species and is represented within the limits of the United States chiefly by a western variety which occurs abundantly on the Pacific coast in winter. Con sult Baird, Brown and Ridgway, (Water Birds' (1884) ; Elliot, The Wild Fowl of the United States' (1898).