THE BLACK OR COMMON SCOTER. 125 



here, and the only one I can assign is this : there were immense 

 beds of mussels in the mouth of the river, and in some places 

 along tlie shores of the bay, which I suppose attracted them in 

 such numbers. There has now sprung up a new trade in 

 mussels to Liverpool, and from two to three hundred people, 

 chiefly women, are sometimes employed in collecting these shell- 

 fish at low water, at the entrance of the river. They are washed 

 there, put up in bags, and sent to Liverpool for consumption, 

 where they meet with a ready sale. The mussels are becoming 

 scarce, as well as other small shell-fish, which I think accounts 

 for the diminution of the scoters : certainly there is not one to 

 be seen now for fifty formerly." To this interesting statement 

 I shall only add, that the gatherers of the mussels would not 

 disturb the birds at their feeding-time, as tlie banks are then 

 covered with water. 



About Dublin, scoters have not unfrequently been procured. 

 Mr. W. S. Wall informed me, in 1834, that he had, at different 

 times, received three, which were killed at Clontarf. In the 

 winter of 1837-38, one shot on the coast at Malahide; a second 

 at ChapeHzod, on the Liffey, a few miles inland ; and a third on 

 fresh-water, at Pinglass Bridge, were sent to him to be preserved. 

 About this period one was shot at Balbriggan, on the sea-coast, 

 and at the end of December 1848 an individual was killed in 

 Dublin Bay : — a flock was seen here on the 20th of January, 

 1850.* At the island of Ireland's Eye, near its entrance, 

 Mr. R. Ball, when once looking for mollusca among the rocks, 

 was startled by a flock of about twenty scoters passing almost 

 close past his head. The boataien who observed them remarked 

 that they were " common black ducks." 



A fine adult male bird (which I have seen in Mr. Warren's 

 collection) was shot in December 1833, on the river near Bless- 

 ington, county of Wicklow, nearly twenty English miles from 

 the sea. Two male scoters were obtained about the 1st of April, 

 1843, by Mr. R. Davis, jun., of Clonmel, one of which was shot 



* Mr. J. "Watters, jun. 



