TUFTED DUCK. 387 



rough outside. On the Clyde, numbers are killed every week 

 throughout the winter and sent to the Glasgow market; and limited 

 numbers are also shot on some of the inland lochs and ponds from 

 October to March. I have seen small flocks of this bird, on two 

 or three different occasions, flying at great speed up the river Clyde, 

 a few feet above the surface of the water, and reaching even the 

 Glasgow Bridge at the Broomielaw. On one occasion a beautiful 

 male, accompanied by two females, came up in this way, and 

 pitched down on the river close to the bridge, where they swam 

 about in a half-bewildered state among the broken water caused 

 by a steamer leaving the quay. The male went twice under 

 the paddles of another steamer close at hand, and was at last 

 shot, while his two more soberly dressed companions were allowed 

 to escape. At another time I observed six or eight Tufted Ducks, 

 headed by a splendid male, flying in a string up to the same place; 

 but not liking the appearance of so many revolving wheels in the 

 water, they turned round just as they neared the arches of the 

 bridge, and, after performing a -beautiful curve, shot down the 

 river with their usual rapidity. In the winter of 1866-67 great 

 numbers were shot, in company with female golden-eyes, opposite 

 Dumbarton Castle. 



In the Outer Hebrides it occurs but sparingly. I have seen it as 

 early as September, and have likewise procured it from Benbecula, 

 later in the season, in the plumage of the first year. In the 

 autumn of 1867, when at Hougharry Point, North Uist, I observed 

 a pair of early visitors on the sea near the shore attending a black- 

 throated diver which still retained its brilliant summer dress : the 

 weather, which had for some days been rather stormy, was on the 

 afternoon I saw the birds suspiciously serene, the sea having calmed 

 down like a smooth lake, and wrapped itself to sleep in a golden 

 sheet. The diver, as if disinclined for the company of the ducks, 

 pushed himself forward with such force at two or three strokes 

 that he soon left them behind; but for a few seconds the group 

 struck me as being rather interesting and remarkable, and in the 

 accompanying plate* Mr Sinclair has well expressed the movement 



* Mr Bott, in reproducing Mr Sinclair's drawing, has attached Macgillivray's 

 name of Tufted Scaup a name which, in the first proof submitted to me, was 

 inadvertently printed Scam.p Duck. Though the origin of the word Scaup has 

 long been questioned, I did not consider the substitution of the other word an 

 improvement, and therefore had it altered. 



