HOW SHE TRANSPORTS HER YOUNG. 4?3 



induce the female to return another season, however, he 

 eventually leaves a few eggs in the nest, which she then sits 

 upon and hatches. 



The manner in which the golden-eye and the goosander 

 convey their young from the nest to the ground (which they 

 are believed to do soon after these are hatched), has excited 

 much speculation in Sweden ; but if the following statement 

 recorded in the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences 

 at Stockholm, 1843 is to be relied on, the matter would 

 seem to be set at rest. 



" Whilst the Pastor Bjorkman and his servant were lying 

 in ambush near to a lake, in the parish of Jockmock, 

 in Lulea Lapmark, to shoot velvet ducks, they saw from 

 their place of concealment a female gold en- eye alight 

 amongst some willow bushes very near to them. An instant 

 afterwards, however, she again took wing, and, as they 

 imagined, in consequence of having observed them. But 

 looking with attention towards the spot where she had been, 

 they noticed in her place a newly-hatched young one. 

 They now began to wonder in what manner it came there, 

 when just at the moment the old bird returned to the same 

 place, and after depositing a second duckling, flew off hur- 

 riedly as before. As yet they had not been able to distin- 

 guish in what way she carried her offspring ; but on her third 

 visit they remarked her head to be inclined in a very peculiar 

 manner ; and on the following, they clearly perceived that in 

 a sort of Ogla, or hollow, formed by the head and bill rest- 

 ing on the breast, she conveyed them under her throat. This 

 account tallies also with the relation of the squatters as to the 

 mode in which the female golden-eye transports her young 

 from her nest in lofty trees to the water." 



