228 WILD -FOWL SHOOTING 



This should make the owners of wild-fowl lochs most 

 particular to keep all quiet near the feeding ground of 

 large flocks of fowl, but especially of the dun-birds. 



I may advance another claim why the first arrival of 

 dun-birds should not lightly be disturbed, viz. : the 

 supply of food they cast up for other wild-fowl. Widgeon 

 and ducks feed upon the blades which float upon the 

 surface of the water, after the roots have been torn up 

 from the bottom, nipped off, and devoured by the dun- 

 birds. They are thus unwittingly made to minister to the 

 wants of their poorer brethren. When, therefore, the 

 sportsman sees a tempting flock of widgeon in attendance 

 upon their purveyors, who have been scared away from 

 the shore, to dive on a too distant shallow, it is of no 

 use to wait for them ; for, be the wind ever so keen, the 

 widgeon will not leave the plentiful supply of grass food 

 cast up by the diving birds. But with a cutting wind 

 and no dun-birds to depend on for food, ducks, but especially 

 widgeon, never try the patience long ere they seek the 

 shelter of the shore. 



There are many other divers that frequent our lochs, 

 such as the tufted and scaup-ducks, &c., but they may 

 all be approached in the same way as the golden-eye and 

 morillon ; none are so shy as the former.* Those that 



* I had once a good opportunity of contrasting the artful and sus- 

 picious nature of the golden-eye with that of the more confiding 

 morillon. When shooting wild-fowl on the banks of the Teith, I dis- 

 covered, with my glass, a golden-eye feeding at the top of a long creek, and 

 a couple of morillons at the bottom where it joined the river. As they 

 were at some distance from each other, it was impossible to keep an eye 



