156 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 



blackish-brown ; centre of back and scapulars greyish-white, vermiculated with 

 black ; wings dusky- brown, with outer secondaries partly white ; lesser wing- coverts 

 mottled with white ; belly white ; sides of abdomen and under tail- coverts dusky. 

 The female has the head, neck, and fore back and breast chocolate-brown, and 

 a very conspicuous band of white on the forehead. The young in the first year 

 are nearly similar to the female, and young males retain traces of the white 

 markings on the forehead to the end of the third year. 



Family ANA TIDAL. 



GOLDENEYE. 



Clangula glaucion, L,INN. 



THE Goldeneye arrives on the east coast of Great Britain about the middle 

 of October. The flocks in the Huniber being composed of birds of the 

 year, with a considerable proportion of young males, probably also some adult 

 females. The old male is much less frequently met with, but in very severe 

 winters is of more common occurrence than in mild open seasons, probably arriving 

 from northern localities.* Mr. Robert Gray says, on the east coast of Scotland 

 and Dunbar, he has seen hundreds of males at sea, near the coast, outside the 

 line of breakers. 



Mr. G. H. Caton Haigh thinks the Goldeneye common on the Lincolnshire 

 coast, although owing to its great wildness only a very small number are obtained. 

 Immature males and females appear to be nearly equally common as far as can 

 be judged with the aid of a telescope; old females are impossible to distinguish 

 unless in hand, but he thinks they are common enough. Old males do not 



* In " The Field," February aoth, 97, Mr. F. Boyes records six fine adult male Goldeneye's, shot on the 

 river Hull, during a severe spell of weather in the winter of 1896-7. 



