154 anatidjE. 



scaups, two pochards, and one golden-eye ; and several times 

 during the ensuing month of December, the three kinds fell at 

 one discharge from a swivel-gun. They appear in flocks of from 

 fifteen to forty birds, but much more commonly iu smaller num- 

 bers. So many as from 150 to 200 golden -eyes, unmixed with 

 any other species, have occasionally, but very rarely, been seen 

 together; these large bodies do not come so far up the bay 

 as the other diving ducks. Towards the end of January and be- 

 ginning of February 1845, flocks containing about a thousand 

 birds, of which the only species positively recognized were old 

 male golden -eyes — and all may have been of tliis species — were 

 frequently observed off Cultra quay. The beautiful adult male is 

 much less frequently procured than the females and immature 

 birds — not more than one for twenty of the latter. Sometimes none 

 at all, and generally a few only will be seen in the largest flock. 

 They are rarely here early in the season, but in the winter ending 

 the year 1838, when the species was particularly numerous, 

 several of them were procured by one of the wild-fowl shooters, in 

 the months of October and November, before there had been any 

 frost : the weight of one of these (a fine bird) was 2 lbs. 5 oz."^ 

 Of four golden eyes, killed at a shot here (December 18, 1847), 

 two were adult males, — a circumstance mentioned on account of 

 the rarity of two falling at the same discharge. 



Wild -fowl shooters remark that scaups, pochards, and tufted 

 ducks never dive from the flash of the flint or percussion gun 

 until wounded and unable to fly away ; but the golden-eye occa- 

 sionally dives from both before being wounded. In one instance, 

 an old male, fired at with a percussion gun from a distance of 

 about twenty yards, dived before the shot could reach the spot ; 

 and its emerging and flying right off from the bosom of the deep 

 were the act of the same instant. It is difficult to obtain any of 

 these diving ducks when wounded, and most of all the golden-eye, 



* The male is considered by Mr. Darragh as not attaining fiilJ size until it 

 exhibits adult plumage. 



