HARLEQUIN DUCK. 449 



tschatka. Now and then it is killed in Scotland and the 

 Orkneys. Dr. Richardson found it to be a rare bird in the 

 fur countries, haunting eddies under cascades, and rapid 

 streams, where it dwells and breeds apart from all other 

 Ducks. In Kamtschatka it affects the same retired and 

 remarkable romantic situations; like the alpine Cinclus, it 

 seeks out the most rocky and agitated torrents, in such 

 situations it has been seen in the rivulets of Hudson's Bay, 

 as much as 90 miles inland from the sea ; here it seeks 

 out its appropriate fare of spawn, shell-fish, and the larvae 

 of aquatic or fluviatile insects. On the low bushy and 

 shady banks of these streams it constructs its nest, which 

 contains from 12 to 14 pure white eggs. On the margins of 

 fresh-water ponds in Labrador Mr. Audubon also observed 

 this species, and he remarks, that instead of rearing their 

 young in the same situations chosen for breeding, as with the 

 Velvet and Surf Duck, it conducts its brood to the sea as soon 

 as they are hatched. Its flight is high and swift; and it swims 

 and dives with the utmost dexterity. So great is its confidence 

 in the security of its most natural element, that on the report 

 of a gun over the water, it instantly quits its flight and dives 

 at once with the celerity of thought.* It is said to be 

 clamorous, and that its voice is a sort of whistle; the anatomy 

 of the trachea is however, unknown, and it is not said 

 whether this sibilation be really produced from the throat or 

 the wings, as is the latter case in the Common Clangula 

 or Golden Eye. Driven from their solitary resorts in the 

 interior by the invasion of frost, they are now seen out at 

 sea engaged in obtaining a different mode of subsistence. 

 Amidst these icy barriers they still continue to endure the 

 rigors of winter, continually receding further out to sea, or 

 making limited and almost accidental visits to milder re- 



* Audubon in lit. 



38* 



