GOLDEN-EYE DUCK. 319 
on the Ohio is generally found in the more rapid parts, on the eddies 
of which it dives for food. 
This species exhibits a degree of cunning which surpasses that of 
many other Ducks, and yet at times it appears quite careless. When 
I have been walking, without any object in view, along the banks of 
the Ohio, between Shippingport and Louisville, I have often seen the 
Golden-eyes, fishing almost beneath me, when, although I had a gun, 
they would suffer me to approach within an hundred paces. But at 
other times, if I crawled or hid myself in any way while advancing to- 
wards them, with a wish to fire at them, they would, as if perfectly 
aware of my intentions, keep at a distance of fully two hundred yards. 
On the former occasion they would follow their avocations quite un- 
concernedly ; while on the latter, one of the flock would remain above 
as if to give intimation of the least appearance of danger. If, in the 
first instance, I fired my gun at them, they would all dive with the ce- 
lerity of lightning, but on emerging, would shake their wings as if in 
defiance. But if far away on the stream, when I fired at them, instead 
of diving, they would all at once stretch their necks, bend their bodies 
over the water, and paddle off with their broad webbed feet, until the 
air would resound with the smart whistling of their wings, and away 
they would speed, quite out of sight, up the river. In this part of the 
country, they are generally known by the name of ‘“* Whistlers.” 
I have observed that birds of this species rarely go to the shores to 
rest until late in the evening, and even then they retire to secluded 
rocks, slightly elevated above the surface, or to the margins of sand-bars, 
well protected by surrounding waters. In either case, it is extremely 
difficult fora man to get near them; but it is different with the sly 
Racoon, which I have on several occasions surprised in the dawn, feed- 
ing on one which it had caught under night. Yet, on some of the 
bays of our sea-coasts, the Whistlers are easily enticed to alight by the 
coarsest representations of their figures in wooden floats, and are shot 
while they pass and repass over the place to assure themselves that 
what they see is actually a bird of their own kind. This mode is suc- 
cessfully followed in the Bay and Harbour of Boston in Massachusetts, 
as well as farther to the eastward. 
The Golden-eye is rarely if ever seen in the company of any other 
species than those which are, like itself, expert divers; such, for example, 
as the Mergansers, or the Buffel-headed Duck : and it is very rare to 
