The White-winged Scoter 



At the time of the bird's maximum fatness, the flight of the Scoter is 

 but little more than an effort to keep out of the water, and it is abandoned 

 with evident relief. During migrations, however, the birds are capable 

 of rapid flight, moving as they do in straggling companies numbering 

 from a dozen to several hundred. Occasionally, the Scoters fall into 

 line, goose- fash ion, and one looks twice to see if it be not, indeed, a flock 

 of passing Brant. If obliged to beat against the wind, as upon the 

 Pacific Ocean, the flock flies low, rising over the crest of each billow, and 

 disappearing in every hollow in order to get what shelter it may. 



White-winged Scoters, migrating at a considerable height, as say 300 

 or 400 feet, are subject to a remarkable limitation. Upon hearing any 

 sudden noise, as the banging of oars against the side of a boat or the 

 discharge of a gun, they descend suddenly, as though to take refuge in 

 the water, their only trusted element. Hunters sometimes take advan- 

 tage of this weakness, and as the birds come tumbling out of the sky to 

 escape imagined thunderbolts, give them real ones. 



Taken near Santa Cruz Island 



1834 



A CAT-NAP 



IMMATURE WHITE-WINGED SCOTER 



Photo by the Author 



