GOLDEN EYE. ^69 



lakes in whicli the Golden Eye lays its eggs. Althongli tlie 

 birds are always robbed of their eggs, they gain nothing by 

 experience, but seem to have such a predilection for holes in 

 trees that if such cavities are to be found, artificial or natural, 

 they always appear to prefer them to any other locality. 

 The Golden Eye seems never to be driven from the north 

 except by the waters freezing up. During the long and 

 dreadful winter of 1837, the Golden Eye did not altogether 

 migrate ; the streams at Trolhattan, under the falls, and at 

 various rapids and open parts of the rivers, the Golden Eyes 

 were, in considerable numbers, all the winter, in company with 

 the Goosander, while all the Ducks, Mallards, and Wigeons, 

 were starved to death and found dead upon the ice. There 

 have been speculations and opinions as to the mode the 

 Golden Eye adopts to carry its young down from the holes 

 of the trees in which they are hatched, which are frequently 

 twelve or fifteen feet from the ground, and at some distance 

 from the water. That the bird does transport them is be- 

 yond doubt. There is, I believe, but one person who has 

 ever actually witnessed the manner. M. Nilsson was not 

 aware of it. The Laps, whom I frequently interrogated, 

 were also ignorant, beyond the mere fact of the bird carry- 

 ing them. The clergyman, however, at Quickiock, in Lulean 

 Lapmark, near the source of that chain of vast lakes whence 

 the Lulean river flows, was once a witness. Contrary to the 

 general character of the Lap clergymen in Lapland, this 

 gentleman, with little to employ him, took a great interest 

 in natural history and botany. While botanizing by the 

 side of the lake near Quickiock, where Golden Eyes breed 

 in great numbers, he saw a Golden Eye drop into the water, 

 and at the same instant a young one appeared ; after watch- 

 ing some time, and seeing the bird fly backwards and for- 

 wards from the nest five times, he was enabled to make out 

 that the young bird was held under the bill, but supported 

 by the neck of the parent." 



