THE BIRDS OF ION A AND MULL. 249 



They are as quick divers as any bird. As the whole party dive simul- 

 taneously, and remain a long time down, it is not difficult to stalk them 

 on a rocky shore. After taking the last run, I have reached a capital 

 position behind a high rock commanding the spot where the party last 

 dived, some thirty or forty yards off, and there wait in anxious expec- 

 tation for their reappearance. In a moment up they all come ; before 

 they have time to " get the water out of their eyes " I have covered a 

 male and a duck in the same line, and fire. The shot cuts a circular 

 patch of white foam, the size of a tea-tray, on the spot where the birds 

 were were, but are not, for as the foam subsides and the smoke clears, 

 they have all disappeared, and no corpse cumbers the fair surface of 

 the water. A moment after, up they all rise, a good gunshot further 

 off. Their escape seems miraculous, and can only be explained by 

 supposing that the snap of the cap gives them time enough to dive, 

 though it appears to us to be simultaneous with the discharge of the 

 gun. 1 



The golden eye is abundant in Upper Canada, and I have shot a 

 good many on the lakes after the breaking up of the ice ; also, the 

 beautiful little buffel-head, or butter-boat, as they call it, which is very 

 like the golden eye, and seeing the two together always gave me the 

 impression that the golden eye of America was a bigger bird than that 

 of the Old World. 



THE LONG-TAILED HARELD OK ICE DUCK. 



Norse, Al fogel. 



I can add nothing further on the subject of this bird to the account 

 I gave you by letter, which afterwards appeared in The Naturalist, 

 p. 212. My friend Colin M'Vean says they have deserted the bay in 

 lona, which used to be so much frequented by them as to be named by 

 us long-tailed duck bay. I should suppose these changes are attri- 

 butable to some occult change in the growth of the submarine vegeta- 



1 Shooting guillemots, &c., out of a boat, very often seem to dive at the snap 

 of the cap, but very often it is from seeing the gun brought up to the shoulder. 

 When ranging up within reach of a scart or large diver, the bird is keenly on the 

 alert, ready to dive at the least extra alarm. The best plan is to bring the gun 

 up gently to the shoulder, and then keep the bird on for a few seconds ; then, as 

 he keeps looking first with the one eye and then the other, take him as his head 

 is turned sideways, and fire. He will be arrested in the very act of plunging. 



