LONG-TAILED DUCK 357 



Daily Movements. This duck, like the Golden-eyes and the Eiders, is almost 

 entirely a day -feeder. I do not know whether they have ever been actually seen 

 feeding at night. For the most part their flights in the evening are away from bays, 

 harbors or shallow feeding places off-shore, returning like the Eiders in the morning. 

 One can see this all winter along our coast. Some birds seem never to leave the open 

 waters, even in the most severe northeast gales, riding out the sea all day and night 

 and feeding just outside the huge breakers. Their winter flights are wholly over the 

 water, no matter how far they have to go around to get to the open sea. 



As a general rule they never resort to fresh-water ponds for shelter during autumn 

 or winter, but such habits have been noticed in the spring in East Prussia, where 

 with the Scaup they came in to fresh water for the day, returning in the evening 

 (von Droste-Hulshoff, 1874). Also on Nantucket Island off Massachusetts they 

 have sometimes taken to similar habits in March and April (Mackay, 1892). 



Movement is controlled a good deal by the tides and winds but they can feed in 

 really deep water if they have to. During the night they drift about, returning to 

 their day grounds in early morning. While feeding in a seaway they drift down- 

 wind and recover their ground by frequent short flights. 



Gait, Swimming and Perching. The posture and gait on land, where they are 

 very seldom seen except in the breeding season, are upright, yet Mackay (1892), who 

 saw starving flocks feeding on the upland in Massachusetts, said they were nimble, 

 even rather graceful. 



In the water the striking color-pattern, nearly white head and dark wing, identify 

 both sexes in the mature plumage. The immatures may be easily confused with the 

 female or young of the Harlequin (q. v.). In the ordinary swimming posture the tail 

 is not carried at the elevation so often pictured. Often it drags upon the water and 

 at times it is even submerged. It is raised well above the water only during court- 

 ship play. 



Very rarely during the winter single birds will "haul out" on some rock or sand- 

 bar, but they do this less frequently than almost any other species. 



Old-squaws, together with Eiders, are able to reach greater depths than any of the 

 other diving ducks. Although their favorite feeding grounds are shoals and rocks in 

 twelve to twenty-five feet of water, they must go to much greater depths at times, 

 for we have such testimony from many fishermen in various parts of the world. 

 Some of these reports are so extravagant that they can be dismissed without further 

 consideration. Such, for instance, as the statement of a captain on Lake Erie who 

 claimed to have caught three in a gill-net at 162 feet (Bacon, 1892). Nevertheless 

 it is certain that many are taken at fifty feet and even at ninety feet, which seems 

 to be about the maximum depth on Lake Erie (Bacon, 1892; W. E. Saunders, in 

 Hit.; Sterling, 1890). Naumann did not believe they could reach bottom in depths 



