70 SCAUP. 



In Cornwall one, a female, was shot at St. Keverne, near 

 Falmouth, the 19th. of January, 1850. In Lincolnshire they 

 have been met with on Croxby Lake. In Sussex, near Lewes. 

 In Oxfordshire it is not an un frequent winter visitant. One 

 was caught on the 24th. of December, 1829, on the basin 

 of water in the quadrangle of Christ's Church College, 

 Oxford, where it had settled in company with two others. 

 In Norfolk these birds are not uncommon about Yarmouth. 

 The same remark applies to the coasts of Dorset and Hants. 

 In Surrey a Scaup was shot on a piece of water near Milford 

 House, Godalming, on the 8th. of December, 1846. 



They are winter visitants to Shetland and Orkney. 



In Ireland also they are described as common. 



In one instance the Scaup Duck has been supposed to 

 breed in this country, namely in Scotland, in Sutherlandshire, 

 where a female attended by her young one was found by 

 Sir William Jardine, Bart., in the month of June, 1834. 



They arrive about the end of October or beginning of 

 November, according to the weather, and stay till March, 

 when they depart to the north to build, lay, and rear their 

 young. 



These birds appear to go in small flocks of ten or a dozen. 

 On their first arrival, they are naturally tame and ignorant 

 of danger, but soon come to learn the lesson which has to 

 be learnt for their security by most other birds, and become 

 exceedingly shy and wary. They are very readily reconciled 

 to comparative confinement, and are in such case said to 

 become good for the table. Many are sold in the markets 

 for the purpose, but without this preparatory change in 

 condition. 



They dive well, and remain under water for a full minute. 

 They swim very fast, both on and below the surface, the 

 former deep in the water. Meyer writes as follows of them: 

 'It is a beautiful sight to observe a string of these birds 

 swimming on the sea, and especially to notice the usual 

 mariner in which they rise from that element. When one of 

 the extremities of such a long body raises itself in the air, 

 the rest rise as their turn comes; and thus they are. as it were, 

 drawn up one by one from the surface of the water; and 

 when pursuing their course, they continue to keep the same 

 order in the air; on alighting the same regularity is observed, 

 unless the birds are on their migratory passage, during which 

 time they do not always follow each other so regularly, owing 



