360 CLANGULA HYEMALIS 



been likened to distant bagpipes or even to a pack of hounds, while the constant 

 repetition has given it names like "Old-wife," "Old Granny" or "Scolder." This 

 call is used at all times of the day or night either on the water or in the air. It is 

 heard all winter, but more violently toward spring and it ceases only after the 

 breeding season is over. 



Few naturalists seem to have heard the female's voice. In contrast to her mate 

 she is indeed one of the most silent of wild-fowl. Hantzsch (1905) described the 

 sound as a soft wed, wad, or wud. I do not recall ever having heard the note myself, 

 for it is most difficult to pick it out from the chorus of a mixed flock. 



The trachea of the male is unique. It has been well figured by Eyton (1838) and 

 later writers. At its lower end the wind-pipe is somewhat enlarged and flattened, 

 with five small window-like areas facing forward and to the right. The bony box is 

 large and roughly kidney-shaped, facing mostly to the left and furnished with a 

 single large membrane on the outer side. 



Food. The winter food of the Long-tail consists chiefly of small univalve and 

 bivalve mollusks with crustaceans and occasionally small fish. The stomachs of this 

 species examined by the U.S. Biological Survey were collected in the northern 

 States, Canada, and Alaska mostly during the months from October to April. Well- 

 filled stomachs upon which percentages of food items can properly be based number 

 53, and they indicate that less than a tenth of the subsistence of the Old-squaw is de- 

 rived from the plant kingdom. The vegetable food consists mostly of seeds of pond- 

 weeds (Potamogeton, Zannichellia, Hippuris) with some foliage of these and similar 

 plants, and of algae. 



The most important elements of the animal food are mollusks and crustaceans. 

 Univalves and bivalves are taken to about an equal extent, and among the latter are 

 some commercial varieties, as the common mussel and the scallop. The crustaceans 

 include diverse groups; the amphipods or water-fleas are much favored, and various 

 small crabs, including hermits, are freely eaten; one stomach contained remains of 

 37 mud crabs. Several other groups of marine organisms taken with nearly equal 

 frequency compose only a minor part of the subsistence; these include foraminifera, 

 bryozoans, barnacles, hydrozoans, sea urchins and marine worms. In fresh water, 

 larvae of caddis-flies and midges are most often taken; between four and five hundred 

 of the latter were present in a single stomach. Small fishes are occasionally eaten by 

 the Old-squaw. 



Three stomachs from St. Michael's, Alaska, in June give some idea of the summer 

 food. They contain on the average 20 per cent of vegetable matter, including the 

 seeds and foliage of pond-weeds, and the seeds of sedges. The animal food was midge 

 and caddis larvae; 250 of the former made up 97 per cent of the food of one of these 

 birds (W. L. McAtee, MS. notes). 



