BIRDS 295 



flock at the side of Burgh marsh. On the 10th of that month 

 there arrived a flock of between one hundred and two hundred 

 Goldeneyes. The most experienced wild-fowlers assured us that 

 they had never seen so large a company before, but their punt- 

 guns soon split up the flock, while the shoulder-guns further 

 reduced their numbers. We were on the same ground on the 

 13th, weather fine with a biting frost, and tide flowing, saw 

 several birds in female dress come flying up from the basin of 

 the estuary, to join a big lot, composed chiefly of females and 

 young birds, with only a sprinkling of old drakes. This broke 

 up into thirties, and Bryson was just working up to a flock of 

 thirty-five when another and another joined the first lot, which 

 was thus augmented to a hundred birds. They swam together 

 in front of the punt, but were manifestly uneasy and drew away ; 

 this happened several times, but at length the fowler let fly at 

 a lot of about three dozen ; he killed six dead and lost four 

 cripples through not having a shoulder-gun. 



The Eden was still ice-bound, notwithstanding a partial 

 thaw, when we visited Burgh marsh on January 3, 1891, to find 

 little else than Goldeneyes, and these sadly reduced in numbers. 

 The persecuted birds for the most part frequented the river 

 above Sandsfield. When they came down stream, eight in one 

 lot and twenty-seven in another, it was flying very fast and 

 rather high ; but, as they passed, one sportsman pulled down an 

 old drake which fell with a crash upon the gravel scar, and a 

 villager on the other side stopped an old female, which our dog 

 fetched out for him. Their destruction was only excusable 

 from the point of view that they were hard to shoot, and that 

 the fishermen depend for their living during the winter upon 

 the wild-fowl they kill. Fortunately, the large majority of 

 those shot were males of all ages, their sex always preponderat- 

 ing, and their slightly larger size rendering them rather more 

 conspicuous than females. On the 4th of the following February 

 we found about a score of Goldeneyes on Monkhill Lough, two 

 of the number being full-dressed drakes. I have spent many 

 hours there during the last nine years in studying the actions of 

 the Goldeneye, whether diving actively for food, each bird taking 

 its turn as sentinel, or flying restlessly and low across the 



