1890.] Mackay ov Somateria dreaserr. 



317 



where the mussels have been torn off. When coming to feed 

 in the morning, the earliest birds arrive before daybreak, and 

 they continue coming until all have arrived. They invariably 

 alight outside, some distance from the rock, and swim in always 

 in a compact body, frequently almost on top of each other, carry- 

 ing a wave before them. Some days they have what I call a 

 diving morning, when it seems impossible to shoot them. I 

 have known a flock of seventy-five to swim up in a body to with- 

 in forty-five yards, when on shooting at them, they would all get 

 under water before the shot could reach them. Such mornings 

 were always the precursor of few if any Ducks. 



The young drakes seem to keep together, one instance of which 

 I may mention, when my friends Messrs. Nickerson and Phillips, 

 with only one barrel each, shot eighteen young drakes dead out 

 of a flock of twenty-three on the Salvages oft' Cape Ann, in the 

 winter of i860. These same gentlemen also shot eighty-seven 

 one day in December, 1859, on the same rock. The feathers of 

 the females are more easily detached than those of the drakes. 



These Ducks will not come to the rocks or decoys if a dead 

 bird is floating in the vicinity, just the opposite, in my experi- 

 ence, of the effect it has on other Ducks. I have known a lar^e 

 flock sitting some two miles to leeward to be disturbed, and take 

 flight, by a dead Duck drifting down past them. This, however, 

 does not appear to affect them in Muskeget waters, for they do 

 not mind the dead birds around, and it is a common occurrence 

 for them to alight to dead birds drifting. When they have not 

 been disturbed the previous day and they leave at night for the 

 open sea to roost, it is certain they will return the following 

 morning, but if so disturbed it is problematical if they return at 

 all. 



It is only in those waters bounded by the islands of Nantucket, 

 Muskeget and Martha's Vineyard that the American Eider may 

 be said to congregate, in our vicinity, as is also the case with 

 most of the other water fowl found on our coast. Here in im- 

 mense numbers they live undisturbed during the winter months, 

 with^an abundance of sea-clams and scallops, black mussels 

 {Modiola modiolus) and sweetmeats (Crep/'dtila fornicata) . 

 Of these last they do not swallow the shells, but shuffle the meat 

 out, discarding the shell, empty ones of which I found in great 

 quantities on the shoals. All these are obtained by diving. On 



