The Golden-eyes. 363 



"Birds of the Humber District": "These 

 Ducks swim rather high in the water. 

 They are expert divers. A fine old male, 

 which I watched for nearly an hour on 

 the 26th January, 1869, swimming and 

 diving in our creek, remained immersed, 

 on the average, from forty-five to fifty 

 seconds, continuing on the surface between 

 each dive about twelve seconds, conse- 

 quently spending four-fifths of its time 

 under water." 



Mr. Abel Chapman thus writes about 

 Golden-eyes in his work on Bird-Life of the 

 Borders : " These, on first arrival, are 

 quite tame and easily approached in a punt, 

 before which they continue stupidly swim- 

 ming away even when within fair shot. But 

 a few weeks later, as soon as they have 

 acquired experience of the dangers of the 

 coast, Golden-eyes are among the wildest of 

 all wild fowl ; indeed, with the Mergansers 

 they are perhaps the only birds which, on 

 open water, it is wholly useless to try to 

 approach in a gunning punt. Golden- 

 eyes, when on the coast, spend the night 

 at sea, flying up in twos and threes into 

 the estuaries at the dawn ; and their haunts 

 are the deep-water channels of the harbour, 

 especially those with sandy or shingly 

 bottoms, where they continue diving 



