Journal of Proceedings.
lxxv
as this wind often brings many other coast-frequenting birds inland in
winter time.
The Black-throated Diver (C. arcticus, L.) came more especially
under my own observation, as it was killed on our farm. The 24th of
December was marked by an exceedingly heavy fall of rain. Kain had
also fallen heavily on several of the preceding days, and the result was
that on the 25th, Christmas Day, the floods were higher at Chignal and
along the valley of the Cairn Brook than they had been known for
fifteen or twenty years previously. About two o'clock our foreman,
named Smith, who lives at Pengy Mill Faun, was watching a Heron
which had settled down within about ten yards of his house, when he
noticed a bird which he took to be a Wild Duck swimming about on the
flooding close at hand. Approaching it with his dog, he saw that it was of
large size, and then he mentally promoted it to the rank of a Wild
Goose, but on seeing it directly after dive under water, his ornithological
knowledge would carry him no further. As the bird did not seem
inclined to take wing, Smith set his dog upon it; but a bird of such a
size, and armed with such a bill, is no mean adversary, and the dog
was afraid of it. At last, however, after about twenty minutes' hunt,
backed by Smith, who was up to his middle in water, the dog killed it.
During the whole of this time it never offered to fly, but dived con-
tinually, often remaining under for a considerable time. Two days
later I held a post mortem. The sex I was unable to distinguish, and
the stomach contained nothing but small pebbles. Its total weight was
3 lbs. 10 oz. ; total length, from tip of bill to tip of tail, 281/4 inches ;
expanse of wing 34 inches. It had been most neatly killed, as there was
no sign of a wound externally except on the webs between the toes,
which had long before been pierced by small shot and healed up again.
Internally, however, there were signs of a severe old wound. About a
dozen old shot holes or marks were to be seen on the sternum, whilst one
shot had, at some time or other, broken the furculum just at its middle,
and, instead of again joining together, had, so far as I could make out,
formed what doctors call a " false joint." This would, no doubt, have
much weakened the bird's flight, but I do not suppose that this would
account for its not attempting to fly when attacked, as Divers, when
pursued, take refuge in diving rather than by flight.
The Black-throated Diver is the rarest of the British Divers, and
has but seldom been met with in Essex; but one was killed at
Chesterford in January, and Dr. Bree records in the ' Field' that on
the 1st of November, 1875, one, in Bummer plumage, was shot at
Oakley. During sixteen or seventeen years he had never known a
specimen in summer plumage to be killed in the county. Most of those
killed in winter in the south of England are young birds, but this formed
an exception, being, probably, a three-year-old bird just about to assume
the plumage of the adult, as shown by there being a few white feathers
mixed with the black on the neck. The appearance of these two birds
is strange, but is, no doubt, accounted for by rough weather.
Curious Situation for a Spotted Fly-catcher's Nest.
By B. Miller Christy.
The Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa grisola, L.) is well known to be a
bird that can accommodate itself to almost any environment when
incubating, but on June 21st, 1877, I found a nest in a rather unusual
situation. About three-fourths of the mud-lining of a Thrush's nest
had become detached from its foundations, and had been thrown by
some one into a blackthorn bush overhanging the brook close to our