BAY-SNIPE AND OTHER WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 25 



squaws, shell-drake, or loon are the chief and almost the 

 only game; for seldom does a brant, broad-bill, or black 

 duck cross that dangerous line of boats. 



The coot and old squaws are in myriads all along the 

 coast, and we have seen acres of them in sailing, late in the 

 fall, from the mouth of the Chesapeake to York River, 

 a distance of 100 or more miles. The velvet duck (Fuli- 

 (jnlafusca), or white-wing coot, is in flesh rather tough 

 and fishy, and is so hard to kill that its slaughter is con- 

 sidered by fowlers a sure test of skill. It feeds on shell- 

 fish, especially the scollop. When migrating South, it 

 performs its long journey from its summer breeding-place 

 in perfect silence. It is a heavy-bushed bird, and well 

 supplied with down, and when in full plumage a heavy 

 chain of shot is requisite to bring them low. The surf 

 or spectacle duck breeds from Labrador northward. 

 Its flesh is coarse and fishy. It is peculiar to America, and 

 its life is spent in the bays and on the shores of the sea. 

 Its food consists of those small bivalve shell-fish, the 

 spoat-fish and others, that lie in the sand near the sur- 

 face. For these they dive constantly, seldom visiting 

 the salt marshes. They often remain with us in the 

 North during the winter months. They are very shy 

 birds, and not easily approached by boat. In these 

 waters are also very abundant the long-tailed duck, com- 

 monly called the old squaw or old wife, which we hear 

 along the shores repeating their sonorous cry of " South, 

 south, southerly," by which name they are known 

 along the southern coast. On the New England coast 

 they are called the "quandy." This bird is the latest 

 to leave their remote northern feeding-grounds. Pro- 

 tected by its thick, downy plumage, it lingers long among 

 the ice-fields of the Arctic, till at last compelled to seek 

 its food in a milder region. They come in large flocks, 

 but soon separate in small flocks, and through the winter 



