The Scaup-Duck. ^53 



In tile day-time Scaup keep a distance from the shore, either resting on the 

 water or diving for food above some sand-bank or mussel scalp; they are most 

 expert divers, and will continue vinderneath from fifty to sixty seconds. These 

 flocks come in towards the shore with a rising tide, and are often so intent on 

 feeding that they offer a good chance to the concealed gunner, at the same time 

 if they suspect danger they move rapidly out of range, swimming quickly, but 

 very quietly out to sea. At dusk and on moonlight nights they leave the water 

 and come up on the mud flats, particularly to those places where they can vary 

 a shell-fish diet with the succulent shoots of Zostera marina. When at sea they 

 swim high in the water, and with a little caution are not difiicult to approach in 

 the open ; like other Ducks they have the power of sinking or immersing their 

 bodies when approached too closely. Mr. G. H. Caton Haigh thinks that, next to 

 the Scoter, they are the least shy of any of the sea- frequenting Ducks. In the 

 Arctic winter of 1894-95, Scaup, like other sea-fowl, suffered greatly, and numbers 

 were shot from the tide-edge or by wading in a short distance; the poor birds 

 were excessively thin and weak, and quite useless as food. 



When watching Scaup through a glass I have frequently noticed their curious 

 habit, which was first remarked by Montagu, who kept them in confinement, of 

 tossing their head and opening their bills while swimming to and fro and sporting 

 on the water. 



The main food of the Scaup is marine moUusca, crabs, star-fish. I have 

 foiTnd the stomach filled with coarse fragments of marine bivalves ; they also 

 greedily devour the grasses which grow on the slobby foreshores. The opening 

 of the stomach of an old Scaup, after it has been some days dead, is not a pleasant 

 operation, and should be avoided inside the house. The late Lord Lilford, whq 

 kept them for many years in confinement, says they "train off"" readily upon 

 meal and grain, but prefer fish, meat, and snails to any other food. 



The ordinary note of the Scaup is a harsh scream, somewhat resembling the 

 word kaup, kaup, hoarsely repeated.* I have not the slightest donbt this is really 

 the origin of the name, and not, as first suggested by the veteran ornithologist, 

 Willughby, and since followed by others, " because she feeds upon scaup, i.e. — 

 broken shell-fish." They have another note when feeding, a grunt or croak, not 

 heard at any distance. 



As far as I am able to judge, (having tried them occasionally), the flesh is 

 coarse and unpalatable, and quite unfit for the table. St. John (" Natural History 

 and Sport in Moray") says: — "the Scaup-Duck is in general good for the table, 



* I never heard them talk but once, when drifting in a yacht off the coast on a misty morning, close 

 past a. feeding flock. The cry, however, once heard came as a revelation of the true origin of the name. 



