320 BUCEPHALA CLANGULA 



raccoons feeding on adults that they had presumably caught. No doubt pike in our 

 northern lakes make away with a good number of downy young. 



Damage. They take very few (only about 1 %) of scallops when feeding in Mas- 

 sachusetts waters which are stocked with this fine shellfish (U.S. Biological Survey 

 notes). 



Food Value. Little need be said except that the nearly complete animal diet 

 renders the flesh decidedly strong. Still it is in a class superior to the Scoters, and 

 very much better than the Long-tailed Duck or the Eiders. On Cape Cod, in Mas- 

 sachusetts, the natives always maintained that the "Whistler" was one of the best 

 table ducks. They sent the Black Ducks to market (because they brought a high 

 price) and extolled the low-priced and high-flavored "Whistler" as far superior. It 

 should be added that this duck is almost always fat even in the depths of the hardest 

 winter. 



It is quite true also that the young birds before they have reached salt water in 

 October are not really very strong, but somewhat dry and "sedgy." A number of 

 writers, Frank Forester among them, speak of these young birds as often good. On 

 the Chesapeake Bay, indeed, they have been ranked as equal to the Greater Scaup; 

 which I may add is not saying a great deal in their favor. 



Hunt. To make a bag of Golden-eyes in New England one usually has to go out 

 prepared for this duck and no other. It is true that in some places they will be shot 

 when one is rigged out for Scaup, Red-heads and other divers, but they usually 

 avoid a large flock of "stool ducks." They decoy best on some little pass or channel, 

 through which they are used to flying on the tides, and when they have not been 

 much shot at, they will come warily, especially single birds, to a little flock of a dozen 

 or so of wooden decoys. But it is seldom that a really large kill is made in this way 

 and the shooter must be prepared to face long waits in the most exposed situations, 

 sometimes in a hidden duck-float painted white in winter, but more often on a rocky 

 point or a blind built of ice cakes near an open tideway. This last is perhaps the 

 most effective method, for when you can find a small open hole which Golden-eyes 

 are using, an ice blind and white clothing combined sometimes make a deadly com- 

 bination. Nowadays, however, the operation of the Federal Law stops shooting after 

 January 1 over most of the wintering ground so that the ice-hole shooting is a 

 thing of the past. On Long Island Sound a peculiar boat called a "scooter" which is 

 both an ice-boat and a sail-boat was at one time used a great deal for this air-hole 

 shooting. These boats were painted white and were at home on either ice or water. 



Of course a good many newly arrived flocks are shot more or less successfully 

 (usually less) around ponds and rivers, sometimes by running down upon them when 



