152 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



the birds been protected. 1 I have seen boys from Kinross 

 with baskets systematically searching for these eggs along 

 the shores of Loch Leven, and on more than one occasion 

 I have seen from three to four dozen in the fishing-basket of 

 a friend now deceased : the trout had not been taking, so he 

 had wiled away the time by hunting for something else 

 suitable for the breakfast-table. Again, at Loch Fitty in 

 Fife in the end of June 1885 I counted about thirty birds, 

 but only one brood was to be seen, and no wonder ; for I was 

 informed by a man in charge of boring operations close by 

 that he saw between 50 and 60 of their eggs taken a 

 fortnight before. Pike, too, which are usually present in the 

 lochs most suited to the habits of the bird, no doubt make 

 away with many of the young ones. 



I found my first nests in May and June 1883, and since 

 then I have examined many more. The details, now before 

 me, of some 30 nests indicate that in ordinary seasons the 

 majority of the eggs are laid during the last week or so of 

 May and the first fortnight of June. My earliest date is 2Oth 

 May nest with 4 eggs. Nine is, perhaps, the commonest 

 number of eggs in a set. 



Fresh-water molluscs Cyclas cornea, Limniza peregra, etc. 

 seem to form the principal food of this duck : at any rate, 

 I have found these and nothing else in the gullets of several 

 I have examined from Loch Leven and Duddingston. 



A short time ago I had occasion to look into the early 

 history of the Tufted Duck as a British bird, and was 

 surprised to find how little there was to fall back upon. 

 The first definite recognition of the species as a British bird 

 would seem to be furnished by its inclusion (under the name 

 of " Tufted Duck," too, be it noted) in the " Catalogue of En- 

 glish Birds " given in " Willughby's Ornithology " (pp. 21-28), 

 the well-known work which Ray edited, and published first 

 in Latin in 1676 and then in English in 1678. Nothing in 

 Sibbald's "Historia Animalium in Scotia" ("Scotia Illustrata," 

 1684), or in his " History of Fife and Kinross" (1710), in 

 which many birds are mentioned, would lead us to suppose 



1 I do not wish it to be supposed that I underestimate the recent increase and 

 spread of the species in Scotland during the breeding season. That these have 

 been to an unusual degree both extensive and rapid is beyond question. 



