260 NYROCA MARILA 



Many writers have spoken of the lack of formation in huge flights of Scaup and as 

 I think of it I feel convinced that they do not tend to thin out into the fine lines and 

 wedges assumed by Canvas-backs and Red-heads. When they arc well up in the air 

 it is extremely doubtful whether the keenest observer can tell them from Red-heads, 

 unless the color of the birds can be seen. 



Although there is no very sharp whistling noise from the bird's wings there is the 

 loud rustling sound which comes from any large-bodied fowl moving swiftly through 

 the air. 



Flocks are often very large indeed, especially on the water, and it is no uncommon 

 sight to see from one to two thousand in a loosely formed bunch even on the coast 

 of New England. Payne-Gallwey (1882) has often seen 2000 to 3000 together in Ire- 

 land and rafts of 5000 to 10,000 strong have been seen on the North Pacific coast 

 (W. L. Dawson and Bowles, 1909). A flock on the Solway Firth, Scotland, which 

 was carefully measured, proved to be one and a quarter miles long and from 60 to 

 100 yards in width, the birds closely packed (Armistead, in Gladstone, 1910). 



Association with other Species. The Scaup is not especially sociable with 

 other species although extremely gregarious. The name "Flocking Fowl" and 

 "Raft Duck" have been given to it on this account. On the nesting grounds it is 

 much more sociable than most ducks, behaving almost like the Eider in certain 

 places, as in Iceland. 



On the winter quarters in western Europe it feeds mostly with Golden-eyes and 

 Scoters, not mixing very closely with Widgeon, who inhabit rather different waters. 

 If there are Tufted Ducks or Pochards about they may mix more or less with them. 

 The same is true of our own North Atlantic coast, where they are in some bays al- 

 most the only duck that winters in any great numbers. Farther south on our coast 

 they mingle with Red-heads more or less, and on Pamlico Sound, especially late in 

 the season, there is a great deal of mixing with this latter species, both on the water 

 and in flight. E. J. Lewis (1855) noticed their association with Canvas-backs but on 

 the whole the Canvas is a fairly independent duck and probably that association is 

 mostly accidental. 



This duck migrates rather later than the Lesser Scaup and there is not a great deal 

 of intermingling during the autumn flight. Still there is some, for I have shot into 

 mixed flocks of migrant Scaups many times at Wenham, usually one or two imma- 

 ture of the Greater with a larger number of the "Lesser" species. 



On the Petchora River in the nesting season it mingles with Pintail, Widgeon and 

 Teal (Seebohm, 1885) . In Iceland, where at Myvatn Lake it nests almost in colonies, 

 a Scaup and a Long-tailed Duck were once found sitting on the same nest (Shepard, 

 in Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, 1884), and many Mallard and a few W'idgeon, Pin- 

 tail and Teal nest there among them (Millais, 1913). 



