262 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



of the art of "taking cover," and runs disconsolate about 

 the frozen reed-beds, vainly seeking to conceal his dark 

 form where everything is white. Except at such times, 

 so retiring are the rails, that one would scarce be aware of 

 their existence on the hill-burns. Now, they seem stupefied 

 by the changed conditions, and so loth to take wing that 

 in the heavy snowstorms of Christmas, 1869, we ran one 

 down and captured it alive. The spotted crake, wiser 

 in his generation, does not expose himself to such terrors, 

 for already — two months before — he has quitted this 

 country. 



During heavy snow, the hill-burns are a favourite resort 

 of mine for the chances they offer of snipe and duck 

 (mallard, tufted duck, and golden-eye), driven in from the 

 frozen loughs above. But in long-protracted snowstorms 

 the mallards, after a time, forsake inland waters and betake 

 themselves to the coast, where I have then found them a 

 comparatively easy prey to the punt-gunner : for, wild and 

 watchful as mallards always are, these know not the 

 danger that lurks in that long, low, white craft that is then 

 so carefully avoided by their own cousins of the salt water. 

 Golden-eyes, on the other hand, being strong divers and 

 feeding under water, are little affected by hard weather 

 and continue on inland streams long after the mallards 

 have departed. Only once—viz., in the Arctic weather of 

 January, 1881 — have I known this species compelled to 

 retire to the salt water for a living. 



There are, it should be added, plenty of both mallard 

 and golden-eye on the tide all winter, be it mild or hard ; 

 but these storm -driven ducks from inland are readily 

 distinguished when they appear on the coast from the 

 regular tide-loving ducks, by their simplicity and lack of 

 appreciation of the dangers of the sea. 



