SCAUP. 581 



to get away very quickly, though their wings are obliged to vibrate at a 

 great speed and with considerable noise. They both swim and dive with 

 perfect ease, and obtain much of their food under water. 



Although the Scaup, when cooked, is said to taste very fishy, it does not 

 appear to be much of a fish-eater. Shell-fish are its favourite food, but it 

 varies this diet with crustaceans, the larvae of various insects, and with 

 some vegetable matter. In confinement, Montagu found it remarkably 

 tame, feeding eagerly at once on soaked bread, and after a few days on 

 barley. 



The Scaup generally selects some sloping bank, not far from water, but 

 high enough from the edge to be secure from floods, on which to build her 

 nest. It is always well concealed, and seldom to be found except by acci- 

 dentally frightening off the sitting Duck. Sometimes it is placed under 

 the cover of a willow or a juniper bush, but more often in the open, care- 

 fully hidden in some hole in the rough ground, surrounded by cranberries 

 or bilberries struggling amidst tufts of sedge or cotton-grass. The hole is 

 lined with dry broken sedge, and as the eggs are laid an accumulation of 

 down is formed sufficient to keep them warm when the Duck leaves them 

 to feed. 



The eggs of the Scaup are from six to nine in number, pale greenish grey, 

 almost the same colour as the typical egg of the Pheasant. They vary in 

 length from 2' 7 to 2'4 inch, and in breadth from T75 to T65 inch. The 

 down is as large as that of the Mallard, dark brown, without pale tips, but 

 with obscure pale centres. Small eggs of the Scaup are indistinguishable 

 from large eggs of the Pochard, but the down of the latter bird is a greyer 

 brown. 



The Scaup is always a migratory bird : the young leave the place of their 

 birth in August, and by the end of September their parents have also 

 deserted their breeding-grounds, which are generally ice-bound early in 

 October. In Iceland, where the winters are mild, the old birds linger on 

 into October, and return again late in March ; but in North Europe and 

 Asia their breeding- grounds are buried six feet deep in snow until the last 

 week of May or the first week of June. In the valley of the Petchora we 

 got full clutches of fresh eggs on the 25th of June and the 4th of July, but 

 in Iceland this Duck breeds a week or two earlier. 



The adult male Scaup in nuptial dress has the entire head, neck, upper 

 breast, upper mantle, rump, upper and under tail-coverts black, glossed with 

 green or purple, according to the position in which it is held, especially on 

 the head ; the lower mantle, scapulars, wing-coverts, innermost secondaries, 

 lower belly, and most of the under wing-coverts are vermiculated with very 

 dark brown and white, the white predominating on the scapulars, and the 

 brown on the wing-coverts and innermost secondaries. The secondaries are 

 white, with brownish-grey tips, and the primaries are greyish brown, with 



