BIRDS 289 



shoot almost like swallows to the water, but just before touch- 

 ing the water they rose again, and returned in their upward 

 flight nearly to the point from which they had started. This 

 point not having attracted my attention previously, I paid some 

 attention to it, and noticed it again, as for example on March 

 17, 1891, when we watched a small party of Tufted Ducks 

 flying across the lough, suddenly swoop down towards the 

 water like swallows, to rise — without alighting — in a graceful 

 aerial curve. Tufted Ducks are sociable birds, and often 

 associate with Wigeon. On February 4, 1891, I found three 

 female and two male Tufted Ducks assembled at the narrow 

 end of the lough along with two Pochard drakes. The female 

 Tufted Ducks openly flirted with the Pochards, swimming 

 round them seductively, but the Tufted drakes took no notice 

 of their partners' irregularities, and did not show any jealousy 

 of their handsome rivals. On the 4th of October 1889 I spent 

 an hour and a half in watching a couple of young Tufted Ducks 

 which had joined company to a stray Scaup on their favourite 

 waters. The Scaup swam lower in the water than the Tufted 

 Ducks, and seemed less at home, frequently turning its neck 

 from side to side as if apprehensive of danger. It was very 

 active, swimming at a smart rate, occasionally uttering its harsh 

 call-note. When the Tufted Ducks rose on the wing, the Scaup 

 joined them, but it only took half a turn over the sedge and 

 quietly dropped back on to the water, an example which was 

 at once copied by the Tufted Ducks. We observed this white- 

 fronted Scaup again on the 18th of the same October, but the 

 Tufted Ducks were absent and the Scaup was solacing himself 

 with the company of a score or so of Coots. It was of course 

 a larger and coarser bird than the Tufted Ducks. Tufted 

 Ducks fly from Monkhill to Crofton, Thrustonfield, and to the 

 neighbouring rivers like the Caldew and Eden, as do the 

 Shovellers ; so that the first-named lough may often be visited 

 without any Tufted Ducks being seen, or perhaps an odd one 

 only, while the birds are still in the district ; but few stop long 

 enough on the rivers to be shot, except during extended frost. 

 In the frosty weather which prevailed at the beginning of 

 January 1891, the Tufted Ducks were frozen out of their 



