BIRDS 297 



and his mate from the vicinity of his own family party with an 

 amusing show of indignation. Yarrell (fourth edition) says 

 of the Goldeneye : 'the voice is said to be very loud : whence, 

 or from the noise of the flight, the name clangula.' The second 

 etymology is surely the right one % I have always found 

 Goldeneyes very silent birds, and have only twice heard them use 

 a call-note. I was lying upon the bank of Monkhill Lough on 

 the 10th of November 1888, studying the movements of three 

 immature Goldeneyes, when one of them dived up within four 

 or five yards of me, and, catching a glimpse of my head behind 

 the bank, spluttered out a guttural ' kkruk ' to express its 

 astonishment. I lay still and it swam out rapidly about fifty 

 yards into the deep water, and there remained until joined by 

 its two companions. But they did not fly off just then. Long 

 I watched their play with fixed glass, and they seemed uncon- 

 cerned, glancing round with their bright yellow irides, but 

 unaware of danger. Whenever they began to swim fast, it 

 meant that they were preparing to dive. I saw one bird drink, 

 dipping its neck forward and then throwing the head back and 

 allowing the water to trickle down the gullet. Perhaps it was 

 only an individual idiosyncrasy, but it was new to me and 

 therefore pleasant to see. The Goldeneye is more thoroughly 

 aquatic than almost any of our wild-fowl. It obtains its food — 

 shells, and in a lesser degree water-plants — in deep water, and 

 never feeds like the surface-feeding ducks on our salt marshes. 

 Under no circumstances have I ever surprised a Goldeneye 

 ashore. The birds which the gunners cripple swim and dive 

 away, but they do not go ashore, though after death they are 

 often washed up on the brow of the marsh. I am therefore 

 unable to say of my own knowledge what attitude the Goldeneye 

 would adopt on land. Mr. Archibald has helped me out of the 

 difficulty by forwarding a sketch of a bird which his dog 

 caught alive at the Eusland Pool. The sketch shows that the 

 Goldeneye on land adopts a more upright position than the 

 Mallard, an attitude in fact nearly identical with that of the 

 Tufted Duck on terra firma. 



