130 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



BehavHor. — I have never found the velvet scoter a very wild bird, except in 

 rough weather, when it is easy for them to take to wing, and this is probably 

 accounted for by the fact that their bodies are very heavy, and they seem to 

 experience considerable difficulty in taking to flight if there is little or no 

 headwind. They are as a rule much tamer than either the surf or common 

 scoter; and if a boat is carefully maneuvered so as not to press them at first, 

 a shot is certain. They rise head to wind with the usual run-up, and can not 

 turn away from a boat until they have traveled some 30 to 50 yards. The 

 flight is at first accompanied with much noise and flapping, and usually per- 

 formed at a very low elevation. Unlike the other scoters, they usually adopt 

 a "string" formation, and seldom move about in large flocks. It is most 

 common to see single birds or flocks of from 3 to 15, each bird following the 

 leader at a yard or so apart, and only 2 or 8 feet above the water. In 

 the morning and evening these flocks or single birds may often be seen coming 

 lip the tideway from the deep sea, where they have been resting, preening, or 

 sleeping during the hours of high tide, and moving toward their regular feeding 

 grounds. On settling they seem to sink into the water with a heavy splash and 

 glide for some distance over the element before coming to rest. 



The velvet scoter has no superior in swimming and diving. Its powerful legs 

 and feet enable it to i>ass rapidly Iieneath the water, and reach the bottom at 

 depths of 40 feet, and even more. They seem to prefer to search for their food 

 in deep places, probably because mussel beds situated in such spots are far 

 offshore, and consequently safe. I do not think they use the wings under 

 water, at any rate to the same extent as the eider. 



Both the male and female velvet scoter make a hoarse guttural cry like 

 the words " kt-a-kra-kra." The male probably had a distinct call during court- 

 ship, but no one, so far as I know, has ever seen the mating display of these 

 birds. 



In our islands the velvet scoter is strictly a sea duck, is only very rarely 

 killed on fresh water, and then only on migration. As a rule these birds 

 frequent the neighborhood of mussel banks at some distance offshore, appar- 

 ently caring little whether these situations are exposed or protected, for they 

 come with the utmost regularity to the same places year after year. Most of 

 the places known to me in Scotland and the islands where these birds spend 

 the winter months are more or less protected by outlying islands or headlands, 

 but in some cases, such as St. Andrews Bay and the Tay estuary, their feeding 

 grounds are usually exposed to north and easterly winds. They seem to be 

 capable, however, of standing as much buffeting by wind and weather as the 

 hardy eiders and long-tailed ducks, and will ride out great storms at sea with- 

 out coming in for protection. 



Winter. — Herr Giitke (1895) gives the following account of the 

 winter home of this and other sea ducks about Heligoland : 



During the severe winter all the flocks of birds which, during ordinary 

 winters, are in the habit of staying in the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, and 

 under the shelter of the west coast of Holsten, now congregate on the 

 open sea outside of this ice field. Wherever the eye roams it alights upon 

 sea ducks of all possible species, near and far, high and low, in smaller or 

 larger flocks, singly or in pairs. These consist of myriads of common and 

 velvet scoters, flights of from 5 to 50 gay-colored red-breasted mergansers, 

 smaller companies of the beautifully colored goosander, mixed with bands of 

 from 20 to 100 or more scaups {A. marila), which flights again may be crossed 

 by from 3 to 5 of the brilliant white, green-headed males of the goldeneye, 



