156 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



concentrated there, until their numbers sometimes appear 

 larger than ever; but Thoreau, who traversed the shores of 

 Cape Cod on foot in 1864, states that he found practically 

 a continuous flock of Coots just outside the breakers along 

 the whole shore. Mr. George H. Mackay, who has published 

 in The Auk an excellent account of the Scoters, and whose 

 experience extends over fifty years, states that on March 18, 

 1875, while returning to Nantucket from a shooting trip to 

 Muskeget Island, he saw a body of Scoters which his party 

 estimated to contain twenty-five thousand birds. They were 

 accompanied by about twelve thousand Eiders, forming alto- 

 gether the largest body of wild-fowl that he ever saw. It is a 

 well-known fact that Scoters feed largely on shell-fish of no 

 great value to mankind, such as the mussel {Mytilus edulis); 

 and it is stated by the fishermen that where a bed of these 

 mussels near Cuttyhunk was destroyed, presumably by a storm, 

 the " Coots " which were formerly very plentiful there de- 

 serted that shoal. Mackay states that these birds feed on 

 small sea clams {Spisula solidissimd) , scallops {Pecten irradi- 

 ans), short razor-shells {Siliqua costata) and quahogs {Venus 

 mercenaria) . Fishermen and gunners sometimes assert that 

 these Ducks are very destructive to valuable shell-fish, but I 

 have noticed that scallops and quahogs decrease most rapidly 

 in our inner bays, where these birds are fewest. We have no 

 knowledge that would warrant us in failing to protect the 

 birds. In fact, they are of some service in destroying enemies 

 of the shell -fish, and they sometimes point out to the fisher- 

 men the location of beds of scallops. 



As food. Ducks of this genus are regarded as nourishing 

 but not very appetizing. Some writers have gone so far as to 

 stigmatize them as abominable; but the people of Cape Cod 

 are able, by parboiling, etc., to make a dish of even the old 

 birds, which, though it may " taste a Httle like crow " to the 

 uninitiated, serves as an agreeable variant to a diet of salt 

 fish. 



Mr. Frank A. Bates says, in his Game Birds of North 

 America (pages 33, 34), that an old bird is simply infamous in 

 flavor, and that he never saw a bird so young as to equal 



