606 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Scoter. Although it frequents the sea-coasts in winter, it also ascends the 

 rivers, and occasionally visits inland lakes. It is perhaps also rather less 

 wary, and may more readily be approached within gunshot. In the 

 breeding-season it migrates further up country, and often makes its nest 

 in the short willow-scrub on the tundra at some distance from water. 

 Like its near ally it is a somewhat late breeder, eggs being seldom found 

 before the end of June or the beginning of July. The nest is a mere 

 depression in the ground, lined with any suitable material that may be 

 convenient, and provided with abundance of down. 



The eggs of the Velvet Scoter are usually eight, but sometimes nine, in 

 number, and are pale greyish buff, smooth in grain, but with little gloss. 

 They vary in length from 2' 9 to 2' 7 inch, and in breadth from 1'95 to 1*85 

 inch. The down is rather larger than that of the Black Scoter, slightly 

 browner in colour, but the pale centres are not so distinct. The eggs of 

 the Goosander overlap in size, but the down is always an easy means of 

 distinction. 



The food of the Velvet Scoter is almost entirely obtained by diving, and 

 consists principally of moUusks. Its note is a h'arsh ker-ker, like that of 

 most of the diving Ducks. 



The Velvet Scoter is a larger bird than the Common Scoter. The adult 



male in full nuptial dress is entirely black, glossed with green and purple, 



except a patch behind the eye, the inner web of the first secondary, and 



the tips of the greater wing-coverts, which are white. Bill orange, black 



on the nostrils and basal tubercle, the margin of the upper mandible 



and a streak on each side of the nail meeting and running up to the 



nostrils also black ; legs and feet orange, webs brownish black ; irides 



greyish brown. The adult female has the entire plumage brown, with a 



slight greenish gloss on the wings, and the white alar speculum as in the 



male ; the feathers of the back and the scapulars and those of the Avhole 



of the underparts have obscure pale edges ; there are two obscure white 



patches on the sides of the face, one between the eye and the base of 



the bill, and another above the ear-coverts. Bill brown. Young in first 



plumage very closely resemble adult females, but young males may be 



distinguished by the absence of the pale margins to the feathers of the 



back and the scapulars, and the much greater obscurity of the two white 



patches on the sides of the face. Males in first nuptial dress have less 



metallic gloss on the plumage. jMales have doubtless a brown moulting- 



dress, somewhat resembling that of the female ; but the only evidence at 



present available of this is the statement of Naumann and others that 



adult birds in nuptial plumage occasionally have brown feathers which 



appear to be remains of this dress. Young in down differ from those of 



the Common Scoter in having a white spot on the wings, and in being 



■whiter on the belly. 



