THE AMERICAN SCAUP DUCK. 795 
feeding not only upon the eel-grass itself, but upon the varied forms of life 
which shelter in its green fastnesses. 
It is not uninteresting to watch a small platoon of these somewhat prosaic 
fowls at supper. They spend as much time as possible below, and when they 
are well assured of safety they excuse themselves one by one, till not a soul re- 
mains in sight, not even a lookout. ‘Then one emerges, then another, until the 
whole company is reassembled to compare notes on their luck, or to disappear 
again in one, two—thirty order, after their lungs are re-charged with air. 
About half an hour before sunset, as tho by some preconcerted signal, a 
grand exodus takes place. Flock joins flock as the birds rise steadily against 
SCAUP ASLEEP. 
the wind. Mindful of their former experience, the ducks attain a height of 
two or three times that at which they entered the harbor and, strong in the 
added confidence of numbers, the serried host, some forty companies abreast, 
sweeps over the spit in unison—a beautiful and impressive sight. Some five 
minutes later a second movement of a similar nature is organized by half as 
many birds remaining; while a third wave, containing only a hundred or so of 
laggards, leaves the harbor destitute of Scaups. 
Before the advent of the white man the Indians had methods of their 
own for obtaining these abundant fowls in wholesale quantities. According 
to Suckley, long nets were stretched from pole to pole along these narrow 
sand-spits just before the evening exodus, and the birds, not having been 
