330 BRITISH BIRDS. 



mistaken, although it is said that the knob in some 

 specimens is red : in that of the female it is hardly 

 noticeable; and in the younger males it is of a 

 small size. The eyelids are yellow, the irides dark, 

 and the whole of its close smooth plumage is black, 

 glossed on the head and neck with purple. The 

 tail consists of sixteen sharp-pointed feathers, of 

 which the middle are the longest: legs brown. In 

 some of the young females the plumage is grey. 



In severe winters the Scoters leave the northern 

 extremities of the world in immense flocks, dis- 

 persing themselves southward along the shores of 

 more temperate climates. They are found on the 

 coasts of England all the winter; according to 

 Buffon, they appear in great numbers upon the 

 northern coasts of France, to which they are attract- 

 ed by beds of a certain kind of small bivalve 

 shell-fish (vaimeaux)) which abound in those parts, 

 and of which they are very fond, for they are almost 

 incessantly diving in quest of them. Over these 

 beds of shell-fish, the fishermen, at low water, 

 spread their long nets, floated or supported hori- 

 zontally two or three feet from the sand : these they 

 leave to be covered by the overflowing tide, which 

 also brings the Scoters prowling along with it, 

 within their accustomed distance from the beach. 

 As soon as the first of them perceives the shells, it 

 instantly dives, when all the rest follow the ex- 

 ample, and numbers are entangled in the floating 

 meshes of the net. In this way it is said that 

 sometimes twenty or thirty dozen have been taken 

 in a single tide. These birds are sold to the 

 Roman Catholics, who eat them on fast days and 

 in Lent, when their religious ordinances have for- 



