WESTERN HARLEQUIN DUCK 



are used as a medium of propulsion. When once on the gravelly bottom 

 the wings are closed, the head is held low, and the progress is made 

 against the current, as they walk along poking amongst the stones. When 

 coming to the surface they float up like bubbles, without movement of 

 wings or feet. Their bills break the water and their bodies pop suddenly 

 onto the surface where they rest a moment. While poising on the surface 

 between plunges their bodies float high. When earnestly feeding, seldom 

 more than 10 seconds elapse between plunges. The birds seldom dive 

 simultaneously. The female usually acts first. At times the harlequins 

 choose the swiftest riffles, and when feeding there their method is the 

 same as when in the less joyous waters. They apparently dive from any 

 position with equal ease, but always as they go down they turn up- 

 stream, and even in the swiftest currents they come up in about the 

 same spot at which they went down. When feeding in these racing waters 

 they merely hesitate on the surface, and four or five dives are made in 

 rapid succession. Such work as this is strenuous, but the birds are quite 

 at home in the swiftest currents, and when tired from their exertions 

 they swing into an eddy behind some snag or boulder and rest as they 

 bob about on the surface." 



"As a game bird the Harlequin Duck is of little importance. It is a 

 comparatively rare bird, or entirely unknown, in most of the regions 

 frequented by gunners; and even where it is fairly common its haunts are 

 rather inaccessible. More- 

 over, it lives so largely on 

 animal food that its flesh is 

 not particularly palatable. 

 Among the natives of the 

 Aleutian Islands and other 

 parts of Alaska, however, 

 large numbers are killed for 

 food" (Bent, 1925). The 

 method employed some forty 

 years ago by the natives of 

 the Aleutian Islands to hunt 

 these ducks is described by 

 Bretherton (1896) as fol- 

 lows: "When first the writer 

 went to Kodiak he tried 

 hunting with a boat, relying 

 on wing shooting to get his 

 birds, but without much suc- 

 cess; and seeing that the na- 

 tives always got more birds, 

 he changed his plan and 

 took to the natives' method, 

 as follows: When a band of 



