LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL. 87 



Plumages. — The European bird is so closely related to our own, its 

 downy young and its sequence of plumages are so similar, that I 

 prefer to refer the reader to some of the leading British manuals 

 rather than attempt to quote from them. Mr. Millais (1902) has 

 treated the subject very fully and A Practical Handbook of British 

 Birds, by H. F. Witherby and others, describes the plumages of 

 this and other birds on the British list most exhaustively and 

 satisfactorily. 



Food. — Mr. Millais gives the following interesting account of the 

 feeding habits of the widgeon: 



In a regular feeding ground, generally some long open stretch of mud covered with 

 Zostera marina, it is interesting to see the careful manner in which widgeon approach 

 it. The first little pack will come fl>ing up against the wind and alight on the water, 

 at about two or three hundred yards from the shore, after having previously swung 

 round once or twice to ascertain that no enemy is approaching. This generally takes 

 place when the tide is half ebbed. Out on the water they remain packed close to- 

 gether and very quiet till the first green fronds of their favorite food are observed 

 floating on the surface away inshore. Then the whole gathering begins slowly going 

 shorewards, till at last one bird bolder tban the rest swims in and commences picking 

 at the floating weed. Even then they are subject to sudden fears, and, when about 

 to follow their leader, will often suddenly put up their necks and swim rapidly out, 

 the cocks whistling loudly. Once, however, they have reached the food, their taste 

 for more generally asserts itself, and precautions against surprise are somewhat relaxed, 

 as they one and all move in to still shallower water and commence to turn upside 

 down eo as to pull up the Zosfcra and eat the root, by far the most succulent part. 



Sometimes widgeon, which are both conservaiive as to their beats and modes of 

 life, will pay little attention to a vegetable diet . but live almost exclusively on animal 

 food. Such I find to be the case with the birds living on the sandy coast near the 

 town of Dornoch in Scotland, where all contlitions are purely marine. The widgeon 

 here feed by day and live entirely on small cockles. This renders their flesh poor, 

 bitter, and quite uneatable. I have shot a good few of them there and found all to 

 be the same, whilst birds from the other side of the same firth, and living on the Zos- 

 tera beds to the west of Tain, were fat and as good as widgeon generally are. In spring 

 widgeon are great grass eaters, and later on, like teal and garganey, they devour an 

 enormous quantity of flies. One day in Iceland I observed with a telescope a small 

 party of male widgeon whose wives were engaged in domestic affairs, paddling along 

 the edge of a small lake near My vatn, and picking the flies off the stones in hundreds. 

 This particular insect, a sort of stinging house fly, is very nutritive and tastes like a 

 piece of sugar. As you are obliged to eat plenty of them yourself, for they are always 

 getting into your mouth, you soon get used to them, and swallow them witli equa- 

 nimity, and it is a common sight to see the Icelandic children of the My vatn district 

 picking these natural lollipops off their faces and eating them by dozens. 



In certain northern firths, where widgeon and brent geese frequent the same ground, 

 it is no uncommon sight to see widgeon in small parties of half a dozen "jackaling " 

 the food which has been torn up b> the large birds. The brent can reach far below 

 the surface and tear up the Zostera and they themselves only eat the root and allow 

 the fronds to drift away. These are eagerh" devoured by the widgeon when they are 

 hungry. 



5eAawor.— Macgillivray (1852) says of the behavior of widgeons: 



They are frequently seen in very largo flocks, but usually in small bodies, seldom 

 intermingling with other species. They swim with great ease, and have a rapid di- 

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