THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVER
The weird, long call, or the shrill, demoniacal laugh coming out of the night tells of the sleepless activity of the loon. The whip-poor-will in the adjacent shrubbery seems companionable, and there is a friendly spirit in the short, shrill tremolo of the night-hawk from the invisible sky. Even the plaint of the screech-owl has a tone of human sympathy. But the dreary cadence of the loon is the voice of the inhospitable night, repelling every thought of human association. It does not entreat, it does not warn; yet there is a fascination in its expressionless strength. Over the black water, under the lowering sky, or through the bright still moonlight, the same unfeeling tone fills the ear of night. And sometimes, when the lingering moon sheds a broad trail of light along the still waters of the lake, the graceful swimmer will glide across and disappear in the darkness, breaking the bright reflection into a multitude of chasing, quivering, trailing threads of silver. Throughout the day, where the cedars come down to meet their shadows in the dark water, he swims ceaselessly about, sitting low, with black, glossy neck gracefully curved and displaying its delicate white markings. Sometimes he stretches himself wearily, flapping his wings, and displaying his white breast and the handsome, showy markings of his sides. Though wary and aloof, and without a trace of animation in his loud, penetrating cries, he shows his kinship by the scrupulous care with which he preens his handsome feathers—even lying on his back in the water to comb out and smooth his glossy, white breast.
A hurried cry from overhead may unexpectedly reveal the presence of a pair of loons in another element, and it is always fascinating to watch their steady, strained, energetic flight above the tops of the pines, generally to curve down to some more attractive expanse in the cedar-girt lake. For the water is the loon's natural element. There is an amusing deliberateness in his graceful, silent dive. He does not make the hurried dip of his smaller cousin, the grebe, but more calmly curves both neck and body, disappearing under the surface in a graceful arch. Settling down and swimming with only head and neck exposed is an evidence of suspicion, and is generally followed by a long dive, with a belated reappearance in some remote part of the lake.
When the mother loon takes her two offspring out for a swim, it is a big event in the domestic circle. The outing is announced by prolonged and unusual repetitions of the laughing call. For half an hour the echoes of the lake are kept alive with sounds portentous of new departures in the loon world. Then a peculiar object is seen to emerge from the marshy bay and cross under the shadowy cedars toward the open water. A field-glass shows it to be the mother loon and her two offspring, the three huddled so closely together that they are almost indistinguishable. The mother is unceasing in her care and attention. She strokes the backs of the young birds with her bill, playing and fussing around and close to them, as if they could not exist without her constant attention. Now and then she leans over and lifts a broad, black, webbed foot out of the water, holding it up distended, as if to endorse the modern theory that the parent loon teaches her young to swim. They cling to each other and cling to her, as if afraid of being lost in the great expanse of water to which they have been so recently introduced.
A short distance away the father swims about in lordly indifference, diving occasionally and regaling himself on the unsuspecting fish. A boat comes out from the shore, rowed by an industrious guide, with an angler, picturesquely protected by mosquito net, sitting in the stern. The mother loon pushes and urges her indolent pair in the direction of safety. How slow they must seem as she hurries and encourages them! The trio moves at a snail's pace compared with her ordinary speed, but the young ones show no inclination to dive out of harm's way. Their clinging, crowding tendency serves but to incommode and obstruct her. And where is the male protector? Alas for the romance of chivalry! When the boat comes near, he deliberately dives, and, after the usual protracted wait, reappears in another part of the lake, away from the danger that alarms and threatens the defenceless trio. But the mother remains and urges the encumbering young things to speed. They do make some headway, though slowly, toward the marshy bay from which they recently emerged with so much loud, wild laughter. The indifference of the fisherman and the guide does not reassure them, and they never cease their entangled struggle till lost to sight in the winding lagoon.
S. T. Wood