10 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



here (before they retreat inland) they are easy birds to appi'oach. 

 In 1886 I observed them first on October 22nd on tidal water. 

 There were only four, and when first seen they were swimming 

 in company with four Red-breasted Mergansers, Mergiis serrator. 

 When we were yet a long way off, the Mergansers began to leave 

 them, swimming right away from them. Then the Mergansers 

 waited for them to come up. Meantime we were drawing nearer. 

 Again the eight got together, and again the more cautious "Saw- 

 bills" drew away. We were now about fifty yards from the 

 Goldeneyes, but the Mergansers were more than double this 

 distance, and still they evidently thought they were too near by 

 taking wing and thus saving their lives, as is indeed usually their 

 custom. The four Goldeneyes were swimming in open order, 

 and I was anxious to get them together; for this purpose they 

 actualh' allowed us to chase them about, only swimming away 

 from the punt, but they refused to go close together, nor did they 

 reluctantly take wing till driven into a bight of the sea, a real 

 cul de sac, whence escape was possible only by flight. When in 

 company with the Mergansers, their rates of swimming were 

 severely contrasted, the Goldeneyes being invariablj^ left " clean 

 out of the race." On October 27th, another small detachment 

 of five Goldeneyes arrived on the coast ; they too were very tame 

 until shot at, when they would not admit of further approach. On 

 setting to them a second time, they resumed their usual wildness, 

 and rose fully 300 yards away from the punt. No instance is 

 known of the Goldeneye staying to breed in the British Islands, 

 tliough they are regularly seen well into the month of May fre- 

 quenting freshwater loughs and rivers. (But see More, ' The Ibis,' 

 1865, p. 447, and R. Gray, ' Birds of the West of Scotland' (1871), 

 p. 395.) I once found the nest of this bird in Russian Finland 

 in latitude 70°, but this is considerably beyond the ordinary 

 limits of their northern breeding haunts. 



The trees at this latitude are very small and stunted in 

 growth, far too small, one would think, to afford a nesting hole 

 for so bulky a duck as the Goldeneye. After a long search, 

 howevei", the nest and six eggs were found in the inside of an old 

 stump, and I believe this is the most northern breeding place of 

 the Goldeneye as yet recorded. 



I have never seen Goldeneyes out on the open sea by day, but 

 I have seen them come up the harbour from the sea shortly after 



