THE WHITE-WINGED SCOTER. 



617 



it is difficult to recall it as anything but a sea-bird. My own memory is quite 

 crowded with visions of a long black line of the coveted birds bobbing and 

 diving in serene content, always at a distance of a gun-shot and a quarter 



the lapping tide. 

 i are clumsy about getting to wing, and accomplish the feat 

 noisy flapping, during which the bird's head is brought down 

 ig to get hold of its own boot-straps; but once going it moves 



from the edge 1 



The Scoter 

 only after much 

 as if it were try 

 with great 

 swiftness, and 

 since it is a 

 heavy bird, ac- 

 quires a con- 

 siderable mo- 

 mentum. 1 

 shall not soon 

 forget a win- 

 ter afternoon 

 011 Puget 

 Sound, when 

 two of us 

 crouched be- 

 hind drift logs 

 on the neck of 

 a long sand- 

 spit, which en- 

 closes the 

 teeming wa- 

 ters of Sem- 



iahmoo Bay. The Scoters had been feeding upon the 

 in immense numbers, but at nightfall they began to retii 

 to the open sea. On they came by little squads, hundreds of them, moving 

 like volleys of cannon balls, and clearing the brief stretch of land with a 

 wing-rush which tried the tense nerves to the utmost. Bang! Bang! went 

 the guns, and the birds which acknowledged the salute (not all were polite) 

 grounded on the beach beyond with a thud like an aerolite,— at least so it 

 seemed ti 1 excited senses. 



This species has not been much observed in Ohio, hut it should he found 

 sparingly on Lake Erie, and occasionally at the reservoirs, both during migra- 

 tions and in winter. To the four records given by Professor Jones I am 

 able to add only one, that of a male taken in the fall of 1881 upon the grounds 

 of the Wynous Point Shooting Club, and preserved in their collection. 



GOOD PLACE FOR SEA DUCKS. 



tide 



neck 



