212 ANAS NIGRA. 



back, she swims with them a few yards, and then dives, 

 and leaves them floating on the water ! In this situation 

 they soon learn to take care of themselves, and are 

 seldom afterwards seen on the land, but live among the 

 rocks, and feed on insects and sea weed." 



Some attempts have been made to domesticate these 

 birds, but hitherto without success. 



269. ANAS NIGRA, LINNAEUS AND WILSON. SCOTER DCCT. 



WILSON, PLATE LXXII. FIG. II. EDINBURGH COLLEGE MUSEUM. 



THIS duck is but little known along our sea coast, 

 being more usually met with in the northern than 

 southern districts, and only during 1 the winter. Its 

 food is shell fish, for which it is almost perpetually 

 diving. That small bivalve so often mentioned, small 

 muscles, spout fish, called on the coast, razor handles, 

 young clams, &c. furnish it with abundant fare ; and, 

 wherever these are plenty, the scoter is an occasional 

 visitor. They swim, seemingly at ease, amidst the very 

 roughest of the surf, but fly heavily along the surface, 

 and to no great distance. They rarely penetrate far up 

 our rivers, but seem to prefer the neighbourhood of 

 the ocean, differing in this respect from the cormorant, 

 which often makes extensive visits to the interior. 



The scoters are said to appear on the coasts of France 

 in great numbers, to which they are attracted by a 

 certain kind of small bivalve shelf fish called vaimeaux, 

 probably differing little from those already mentioned. 

 Over the beds of these shell fish the fishermen spread 

 their nets, supporting them, horizontally, at the height 

 of two or three feet from the bottom. *At the flowing 

 of the tide the scoters approach in great numbers, 

 diving after their favourite food, and soon get entangled 

 in the nets. Twenty or thirty dozen have sometimes 

 been taken in a single tide. These are sold to the Roman 

 Catholics, who eat them on those days on which they 

 are forbidden by their religion the use of animal food, 

 fish excepted ; these birds, and a few others of the same 





