330 



BUCEPHALA ISLANDICA 



and they have a strong liking for alkaline lakes, even if there is little aquatic vegeta- 

 tion. By the 15th of April in their favorite grounds in the interior of British Colum- 

 bia each little lake, says Munro (1918), has its flock of courting Golden-eyes, often 

 forty or fifty on a sheet of water of fifty acres' extent or less. Part of these flocks 

 (about half) are irnmatures, and small flocks of young females are seen throughout 

 the summer on lakes where there are no old females with broods. It is easy to tell 

 the young (or perhaps non-breeders) because their bills are only partly orange 

 whereas the paired birds have a nearly uniform orange bill. The non-breeders are 

 continually being chased away by the males and there seem to be many more fe- 

 males than males. 



The display (Plate 69) is very much like that just described in the Common 

 Golden -eye, and has been recorded as well as figured by Allan Brooks (1920). The 

 principal difference is that the whole performance in the Barrow's is less exaggerated 

 and the male does not throw the head nearly so far back. The common form of dis- 

 play in the male is the swallowing or gulping action with the bill open and pointed 

 straight up or over the middle of the back; never with the head on the rump. This 

 may or may not be followed by the kick which throws the water up behind. Chas- 

 ing, with the head close to or level with the water, and the body sunk, always occurs 

 when one male invades another's territory. The pursuer often dives and comes up 

 under the intruder who then makes off at great speed. The males preen themselves 

 a great deal between periods of display. The only call in this sex (so Major Brooks 

 tells me) is a grating croak and a faint grating or clucking sound given during the 

 gulping posture. 



The latest displays which Brooks ever saw were on May 20, 1921, long after 

 most of the adult, as well as immature males had left. 



The female sometimes takes part in the display, bobbing her head up and down or 

 from side to side while croaking. At other times she is indifferent, and goes to sleep 

 alongside the posturing male with Iter head buried in her feathers and her tail cocked 

 up at an angle. 



In central British Columbia breeding birds are mated and scattered over the 

 country by the first of May. The earliest date for full clutches in that region seems 

 to be May 12, but as early as May 22 downy young were seen (at Okanagan) accord- 

 ing to Munro (1918). In Iceland the eggs are laid in the end of May or the first part 

 of June. In cases where the nests are robbed by natives, eggs are laid until the end 

 of June or even the middle of July. During the breeding season in Iceland these 

 birds become extraordinarily tame, allowing approach to within a few yards, and if 

 alarmed swimming away rather than taking wing. This tameness is characteristic 

 of the breeding season only (Riemschneider, 1896; Hantzsch, 1905; Millais, 1913), 

 and the same sort of thing is seen in our own West. But this does not apply to birds 



