140 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



play of colors until the sun itself appears over the water and bright 

 daylight gilds the ocean. Bird life is not lacking in the scene; 

 herring gulls are flying about on all sides, often coming near enough 

 to tempt us to shoot at them, but never quite near enough to kill; 

 they seem to know just how far a gun will shoot. Occasionally a 

 black-backed or a few kittiwake gulls are seen. Loons are fre- 

 quently passing, generally high in the air, with long outstretched 

 necks, flying swiftly in a straight line, their bodies propelled by 

 rapid wing strokes; they often fly within gunshot, but are tough 

 and hard to kill. Large flocks of oldsquaws make interesting shoot- 

 ing, as they twist and turn and wheel in compact bunches; they are 

 swift of wing and not easy to hit; their weird cries add a tinge of 

 wildness to the scene. On rare occasions the sport is enlivened by a 

 shot at a flock of brant, and our pulse runs high when we see a long 

 line of big black birds with white bellies headed for our boat, flying 

 close to the water ; we are lucky if we get any for they are very shy. 



The little "gray coots," the young of the American and the surf 

 scoters, give the best shooting and are the best for the table; they 

 decoy well, particularly when in small flocks, and are easily killed; 

 a pair or a single bird will often circle about the decoys again and 

 again, giving plenty of chances for long single shots. " Butter bills " 

 and "skunk heads," the adults of these two species, decoy well in 

 small flocks, but large flocks are usually wild and either pass the 

 line high in the air or circle out around the end of it. Fifteen or 

 twenty birds is considered a good day's sport, but as many as 135 

 birds have been killed in a day by two gunners in one boat, or over 

 90 by a single gunner. Although thej are thus persecuted year after 

 year throughout the whole length of their migration route, they do 

 not seem to have diminished materially in numbers since the time of 

 our earliest records, and vast numbers of them still migrate along 

 our coast. 



Fall. — The fall migration on the New England coast begins in 

 September, a few early flocks sometimes appearing in August; the 

 main flight is in October when, under favorable weather conditions, 

 it is very heavy ; before and during northeast storms large flocks of 

 scoters are almost constantly in sight migrating southward; the 

 flight is prolonged in lessening numbers during November, and by the 

 end of that month they have reached their winter quarters. 



Winter. — Their winter range extends from the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence southward along the Atlantic coast to South Carolina, and on 

 the Pacific coast they winter from the Aleutian Islands to Lower 

 California. White-winged scoters are particularly abundant in 

 winter on the waters of Long Island and Vineyard Sounds, the cen- 

 ter of their winter range, where they find an abundant food supply 



