138 ANATIDiE. 



females to one male, and of this sex only one bird in full 

 adult plumage.'^ At niglit, as is not unusual, tliey now 

 came to the quays of the town, and among the shipping, to 

 feed, though the weather was moderate. A fowler, having fired 

 at a flock here from his boat on a moonlight night, imagined on 

 rowing to the spot that great execution had been done, from the 

 circumstance of between twenty and thirty birds rising to the 

 surface about the boat, all of which he considered had been 

 wounded ; they had instead been simply feeding beneath, jDroof of 

 which was soon given by their taking boldly to wing ; — with the 

 exception of four birds that had been killed. About a hundred 

 scaup ducks have been obtained in a week during seasons when 

 they were most numerous. 



When scaups are near the shore, and shooters, having the 

 wind in their favour, advance towards them in boats, they 

 are sure of a shot, as, though the birds may not admit of a sit- 

 ting one, they will fly back over the water, rather than escape from 

 the shooter by flying over the land. In this respect they differ 

 from wigeon and other species, as, indeed, they do generally in 

 ,their avoidance of flying over land ; if, for instance, proceed- 

 ing up an estuary river, they will follow all its sinuosities, while 

 the wigeon, &c., will take the shortest course by making direct to 

 the desired point. 



The scaup, though feeding by day, is a regular night-flying 

 bird, as will be found noticed under Pochard, where also its mode 



* The following note on this species appears in my journal. " Belfast, Feb. 20, 

 183'.). I saw to-day in one shop eight, and in another seven scaup ducks, each 

 number kiUed at one shot in the bay. They were aU adult birds : five of the eight 

 were males. Although I caU these adults, the whole of the breast was not of a full 

 black, but at its lowest portion some of them exhibited deep mottled brown. Its 

 upper portion and the neck were black in all, and their heads of the rich fidl green 

 colour." An experienced wild-fowl shooter and taxidermist, who has examined a 

 great number of scaups in reference to the point, states, that he never saw young 

 males display the white colour' at the base of the bill, like old females, as they are 

 generally described to do, but that birds of that sex were always deficient in the 

 white, whereas females of every age displayed it. The irides of birds of both sexes 

 and all ages he has remarked to be yellow. One instance, however, of a male 

 scaup having white for one-eighth of an inch at each side of the upper mandible, 

 but none of this colour above it, has been made known to me. This bird was just 

 beginning, at the end of February, to exhibit a few of the light-coloured waved feathers 

 of the adult male. 



