364 CLANGULA HYEMALIS 



on a par with the Eiders and several grades worse than the Golden-eyes. 1 have 

 never eaten young birds in autumn before they have reached the sea, and I dare say 

 they are fairly good for a short season. It seems that a good deal of vegetable matter 

 is taken at that time. They grow worse, of course, as the winter advances, as nearly 

 all ducks, be they plebeian or otherwise, are apt to do. 



Hunt. A fair number of Old-squaws are shot from "cooting boats" along our 

 Atlantic coast in autumn. Young birds, singles and pairs, decoy well enough to the 

 flocks of wooden Scoters as they ride the waves a half gun-shot from the lead-colored 

 dory of the sea-shooters. These are mostly young birds, for the "Coot" (Scoter) 

 shooting is nearly over before the main flight of old male Long-tails comes by. A 

 fair number, too, used to be shot from ice blinds built at the edge of open water 

 during hard winters. 



Perhaps the best shooting was on the spring migration, when, with Scoters and 

 Mergansers, these birds passed regularly up bays or between islands where they 

 could be intercepted by a line of boats. 



A single Long-tail flying low over a choppy sea, furnished, we used to think, the 

 hardest shot of any of the winter duck of New England, Eiders, Scoters, or Golden- 

 eyes. And no doubt he does still provide a good mark, although I have not shot one 

 in many years. 



Large numbers of these ducks are killed in northern Germany and in the Baltic 

 countries. They used to be shipped in great numbers to the markets of Hamburg, 

 Berlin, Leipzig and other inland cities (Naumann, 1896-1905). On the coasts of 

 Sweden vast numbers are said to be shot by the peasants in spring, either by watch- 

 ing for them in the open places in the ice, or by putting out stuffed decoys. It is not 

 unusual for one man to shoot three hundred or more during the spring flight, and as 

 many as six hundred to eight hundred have been taken, all killed with a pea-rifle 

 (Dresser, 1871-81). 



Mention should also be made of the Swedish practice of taking these and other sea 

 ducks in standing nets, stretched across narrow sounds between islands. These 

 nets, which are about thirty feet high, are so arranged that they can be dropped into 

 the sea the moment the wild-fowl enter the meshes (Macpherson, 1897). Another 

 method of netting Long-tails, resorted to in Sweden, is to sink fishing-nets through 

 holes in the ice, placing them in a "zigzag position along the holes on the bottom." 

 The ducks get entangled when diving for food (Dresser, 1871-81). On the North 

 Sea coast of Germany both horizontal and vertical nets were used in taking Long- 

 tails for the market. 



Wherever winter fishing is carried on to any extent a good many of these ducks 

 get accidentally caught and drowned in the nets. In 1917, Mr. W. E. Saunders in- 

 vestigated reports of very unusual numbers of Long-tails and other ducks taken on 



