THE GOLDEN-EYED DUCKS. 23 



it passes overhead. It also makes a great splashing in the 

 water when it rises, but does not readily take wing, as it is a 

 most expert swimmer and diver. It is one of the shyest of 

 Ducks, and very difficult to shoot. It makes the same grating 

 sound, when calling to its fellows during flight, as the Scaup 

 and Tufted Duck. It is a clumsy walker on the land, and 

 lives almost entirely on the water, feeding on nearly every 

 kind of both animal and vegetable food that its unrivalled 

 powers of diving enable it to find at the bottom : small fish, 

 young frogs, shell-fish, insects, the seeds or buds or tender 

 leaves of water-plants, nothing comes amiss to it." 



"But," he continues, "the most remarkable fact in the 

 history of the Golden-eye is its habit of occasionally perching 

 on the bare branch of some forest-tree, and of discovering a 

 hole in the trunk, sometimes quite a small one, but leading to 

 a hollow inside, where it deposits eggs on the rotten chips of 

 wood without any nest, like a Woodpecker." 



Nest. — As before stated by Mr. Seebohm, the nest is in the hole 

 of a tree, but, where this is not available, the Golden-eye will 

 place its nest on the ground or on the tops of pollard-willows. 

 Sometimes the nest is placed at a height of twelve, and even 

 twenty-five feet from the ground, and the old bird conveys the 

 young to the water, holding it between its bill and its breast. 

 Mr. Robert Read writes to me: — "I have observed these 

 birds on the fresh-water lakes in Scotland as late as May, and 

 keepers tell me that they have seen them in every month of the 

 year except June. The ' Knipa,' as it is called, is well-known 

 in Sweden, and in Dalsland, about 59° N. lat. I saw a pair 

 in June, 1894, on a lake, and was shown the place wherein 

 they had nested the previous year. It was in a hole, about 

 fifteen feet up, at the main fork of an old black poplar stand- 

 ing in a churchyard beside the water's edge." In Lapland 

 and Finland the natives put up boxes for the convenience of 

 the Golden-eyes, and regularly pilfer the eggs of the too 

 confiding birds. 



Nest. — None, as recorded above, but down, as in the case of 

 all Ducks, is used as a lining to the hole or nesting-place 

 selected. 



Eggs. — From ten to thirteen in number, but many more are 



