EATON’S PINTAIL 
341 
Gait, Swimming, Diving, Flight. Dr. Kidder (1875) has described them as 
running about on the land like grouse or quail, exhibiting none of the clumsiness 
of most ducks. Their flight is strong, and they rise readily from land or water as do 
all true shoal-water ducks. Flocks seem to be small, a half-dozen apparently being 
the size of most companies. 
Voice. Observers have likened the voice to that of the European Teal, and have 
distinguished the whistle of the male and the quack of the female. 
Food. Their main feeding grounds, at least after the breeding season, are the 
tidal flats in the deep bays, where they feed on isopods and amphipods, and some- 
times they go well out to sea (Studer, 1889). Several naturalists have thought their 
chief food the seeds of the Kerguelen Cabbage (Pringlea antiscorhutica) but Hlisker 
(1876) denies this. He found the diet lacking all vegetable matter. Dr. Kidder 
describes the food as consisting of roots of Azorella selago, an umbelliferous shrub, 
grass-seeds, earthworms, larvae, and small crustaceans that swarm along the sea- 
shore. Hlisker found remnants of small fish in two stomachs. No doubt considerable 
food is found inland during the breeding season. Hall found the birds along tiny 
brooks raising up the grass industriously for thirty or forty yards, or following the 
course of the brooks to hunt out tender roots. 
Courtship and Nesting. Comparatively full accounts of the breeding habits 
have been published by various scientific expeditions to Kerguelen, but as these 
habits do not apparently differ from those of many other surface-feeding ducks, a 
detailed account is hardly necessary. 
The pairing season begins early in November, and a nuptial flight was noted by 
Dr. Kidder on November 14. The earliest eggs were found by Htisker on November 
17. Other clutches have been found in December or early January, the last being 
February 4 (Studer). The nest is carefully construeted of wisps of grass and moss, 
lined with down, and is situated in a variety of places. Studer describes them as 
located sometimes on cliffs near the coast, sometimes in rocky clefts high on preci- 
pices. Others have been found on the ground under tussocks near the water (Kidder, 
1875) or in the shelter of the Acaena (Hall). 
The clutch is very small, varying from three to six. In one case Hall found a elutch 
of hard-set eggs numbering only two. The eggs are of a pale olive-green color, meas- 
uring 51 by 36 mm. 
The young are mostly hatched by February, and the female seems to desert them 
before they are full grown, that is, in March (Loranchet, 1916). No notes have been 
made concerning the behavior of the males after incubation has begun. 
