DIVING-DUCKS. 215 



them begin to arrive in this country during the month of 

 October ; but while the former is entirely restricted to the 

 salt water and the immediate neighbourhood of the sea, the 

 Golden-eyes distribute themselves throughout the country, 

 being almost equally common on the inland lakes and rivers 

 as on the tidal waters. 



About mid- October, one may begin to look for the Golden- 

 eyes, which arrive during the latter half of that month in 

 small trips of from two or three to half a dozen birds. 

 These, on first arrival, are quite tame and easily approached in 

 a punt, before which they continue stupidly swimming away 

 even when within fair shot. But a few weeks later, as soon 

 as they have acquired experience of the dangers of the coast, 

 Golden-eyes are among the wildest of all wildfowl ; indeed, 

 with the Mergansers they are perhaps the only birds which, 

 on open water, it is wholly useless to try to approach in a 

 gunning-punt. Golden-eyes, when on the coast, spend the 

 night at sea, flying up in twos and threes into the estuaries 

 at the dawn, and their haunts are the deep-water channels 

 of the harbour, especially those with sandy or shingly 

 bottoms, where they continue diving ceaselessly all day 

 long. Their food consists of shrimps, small shell-fish and 

 marine insects, besides, to a lesser degree, the sea-grass and 

 other vegetable matter. This latter they often carry up 

 from the bottom and eat at their leisure on the surface. I 

 would not have thought them sufficiently agile to catch any 

 of the true fishes, but one day last winter (Dec. 5th) while 

 watching a Golden-eye busily diving among the ice on a 

 small (inland) pool, I was surprised to see it capture several 

 fish. Every third or fourth dive, it brought up a small 

 silvery fish sticklebacks probably which it spent some 

 time tugging at and chewing on the surface before finally 

 swallowing. When feeding, the Golden-eyes are usually 

 scattered about the " guts," and if for the sake of amuse- 

 ment, or in the absence of other game (for it is tolerably 

 certain that no shot will be obtained), one tries to " set up " 

 to a pair, their conduct is as follows : They continue diving, 

 first one then the other, often both under at once, and the 

 punt draws nearer and nearer. There is no sign of alarm, 



f 



