LETTER VI. 67 



The cry of the Long-tailed Duck is very remarkable, and has 

 obtained for it the Gaelic name of Lach Bhinn, or the Musical 

 Duck, the most appropriate name for them ; for when their voices 

 are heard in concert — rising and falling — borne along upon the 

 breeze between the rollings of the surf, the effect is musical, 

 wild, and startling. You look around in vain to discover whence 

 the mysterious strains proceed. " Ah ! " you exclaim, " sometimes 

 the fishermen take their bagpipes out with them to cheer their 

 toil while rowing. But no ; no boat could live among those terrible 

 breakers, and nothing is in sight all round the murky horizon. 

 Surely, then, I am listening to a band of Tritons and Naiads, whose 

 music thus mingles with the splashing of the waves, to which the 

 intermissive roar of the surf forms a fitting bass ! " The united 

 cry of a large flock sounds very like bagpipes at a distance, but 

 the cry of a single bird when heard very near is certainly not so 

 agreeable. On the occasion I just mentioned I took great pains 

 to learn the note ; and the following words are the nearest 

 approach that can be given of it in writing ; it articulates them 

 very distinctly, though in a musical, bugle-like tone : — Our, o, %, 

 ■ ah ! our, o, u, ah ! Sometimes the note seems to break down in 

 the middle, and the bird gets no further than our, or owtr, which 

 it runs over several times, but then, as with an effort, the whole 

 cry is completed, loud and clear, and repeated several times, as if 

 in triumph. At this time they were busily feeding, diving in 

 very deep water on a sandy bottom, and calling to one another 

 when they rose to the surface. 



I never saw these Ducks come very near the shore ; perhaps 

 this is partly owing to the bay which they frequent having shores 



