The Greater Scaup Duck 



prosaic fowls at supper. They spend as much time as possible below, and 

 when they are well assured of safety, they excuse themselves one by one, 

 till not a soul remains in sight, not even a lookout. Then one emerges, 

 then another, until the whole company is reassembled to compare notes 



Taken in San Francisco 



BLUEBILLS AND COOTS 



Photo by the Author 



on their luck, or to disappear again in one, two — thirty order, after their 

 lungs are re-charged with air. 



About half an hour before sunset, as though by some preconcerted 

 signal, a grand exodus takes place. Flock joins flock as the birds rise 

 steadily against the wind. Mindful of their former experience, the 

 ducks attain a height of two or three times that at which they entered 

 the harbor and, strong in the added confidence of numbers, the serried 

 host, some forty companies abreast, sweeps over the spit in unison — a 

 beautiful and impressive sight. Some five minutes later, a second move- 

 ment of a similar nature is organized by half as many birds remaining; 

 while a third wave, containing only a hundred or so of laggards, leaves 

 the harbor destitute of Scaups. 



Before the advent of the white man, the Indians had methods of 

 their own for obtaining these abundant fowls in wholesale quantities. 

 According to Suckley, long nets were stretched from pole to pole along 

 these narrow sand-spits just before the evening exodus, and the birds, not 

 having been molested upon entering their feeding grounds, fell easy victims 



1809 



