Loon

a family of divers not remote from the grebe. Our species, three in number, are all northern birds. The common loon, or great northern diver, is a magnificent bird twenty-eight to thirty-two inches in length. It has a wing stretch of forty-four to fifty inches. The upperparts are black, bluish, or greenish. The underparts are pure white. The back and wings are spotted and barred with white. The head and neck are jet black. The latter is encircled by a white collar. The black bill is long, straight, and pointed. If we except the wood duck, the loon is the most showy of our inland water birds. It breeds from Illinois to the Arctic circle, and winters as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. It lives chiefly on fish, which it pursues by diving. It rises from the water with difficulty, yet, once on the wing, is a bird of strong flight. It is a fine swimmer and diver, but it is hardly able to walk on land. When resting on shore it lies outstretched, or else sits on its tail like a penguin. The legs are thin and sharp, made to cut water like a knife, and set well back for swimming. The loon deposits two or three grayish-olive eggs in a slight depression in the ground. The nest is located a few feet from the water's edge, so that the parent bird may launch itself into the water like a ship gliding from the stocks. The young are black and fluffy. They delight to ride on the mother's back. They are soused unceremoniously when she goes down after a fish. The weird laughter of the loon is one of the delights of the northern camper. Thoreau speaks of the loud laughing as a "wild sound heard far and suited to the wildest lake." Sometimes the cry of the bird is as wild as that of a maniac. Canoemen have the phrase "crazy as a loon." See Grebe; Auk; Coot