216 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



and as our friends appear quite unconscious of our presence 

 one begins to hope against hope. But it is all vanity. 

 They are most deceptive birds, and at two gunshots' dis- 

 tance, without a sign of warning they are off they seem to 

 rise literally from mid-water, flying, as it were, from the 

 very sea-bottom without tarrying a single instant on the 

 surface. It is rare for many of these Ducks to be obtained 

 by punters in winter (though in some seasons one sees them 

 almost daily) except in very severe weather. Thus one 

 January day, when the thermometer stood within a few 

 degrees of zero, a bunch of about a dozen not only allowed 

 my brother W. to approach within shot, but, the gun having 

 missed fire, to replace the cap, when, being very near, the 

 charge stopped nearly the whole lot, though several escaped 

 by diving under the ice. These birds had probably been 

 driven down to the coast by the severity of the frost from 

 some moorland lough ; in which situations the Golden-eyes 

 remain comparatively tame and unsuspicious throughout the 

 whole winter the reverse of their behaviour on the coast. 



The drakes of this species must take some years to 

 acquire the handsome pied plumage of full maturity per- 

 haps three or four. One gets birds in all stages of the 

 female or immature plumage, some with brown eyes, others 

 hazel, and many light golden, and with the speculum, wing- 

 coverts and neck-plumage in various degrees of development, 

 but adult drakes are always extremely rare on the coast. 

 We have only obtained one, and that so lately as Dec. 13th 

 last a lovely specimen in full mature plumage. It was a 

 single bird, and so busy diving as to permit the punt to 

 approach within shot of the small gun. Golden-eyes remain 

 here till late in the spring. I have seen them in May, but 

 that is not surprising, as in Norway they do not seek their 

 breeding-spots, among the hill-lochs, till early in June. 



The Scaup is another of the Diving-ducks which the 

 punt-gunner is sure to meet with " inside " from time to 

 time, though perhaps less often than the Golden-eyes. 

 This, however, is not due to any relative scarcity of the 

 Scaup, which some winters is quite as abundant, but is 

 explained by some differences in their haunts and habits. 



