296 THE SMEW. 
never previously been fired at, you can get within shot without 
difficulty in a punt, and even by a little management in a com- 
mon native boat, and you can always get a shot by sailing past 
them at about 40 yards distance. 
They swim and dive splendidly, and if only a single boat 
is after them, they will constantly stick to the water even 
after being fired at, rising perhaps at the moment, but drop- 
ping within 50 yards, and instantly diving to re-appear from 
fifty to a hundred yards beyond the place at which they 
vanished. They come up scattered, but all swim converging 
on one point, and in a few minutes are swimming away in a 
close lump, just as before you fired. But if two or three boats hem 
them in, they generally rise, and, if the place is small, disappear— 
if large, circle round and light again a couple of miles off. 
They spring out of the water with ease, and fly with great 
rapidity, quite as quickly and easily as the Common Teal, but 
almost silently, and with less of a perceptible wing rustle than 
any species Iknow. This is probably due to their very narrow, 
pointed, somewhat curved wings, by which they can be instantly 
recognized when flying. They are very active, restless birds, 
almost always busy swimming and diving, I have never seen 
one on land, but I once saw a number asleep on the water about 
midday in March. 
They feed entirely under water. I have examined many with- 
out ever finding any vegetable matter in their gizzards, or any- 
thing but small fish and water-insects, chiefly a kind of cricket (?), 
and these they pursue under water with astonishing rapidity, 
as may be guessed by watching in clear water a hard-pressed, 
slightly-winged bird, when turning it dives under the boat. 
No duck can touch them at diving, even Grebes and Cormorant, 
and I have watched both perform the same manceuvre, are 
scarcely so rapid in their movements under water. They 
use their wings in diving, though they do not spread them 
fully, so that you must not judge of their performance by birds 
with wings injured above the carpal joint, but where the injury 
is merely on the carpus, sufficient to prevent flight, but not 
otherwise serious, their diving is a thing to watch. 
“During flight,” says Jerdon, quoting I know not whom, 
Pallas probably, “it continually utters its peculiar bell-like 
call; hence it is called the Bell-duck in Northern Asia.” If 
this is correct, this call must be peculiar to the breeding 
season. Here its call, seldom heard except when the bird is 
disturbed, is a short grating cry, about intermediate between 
the caw of a rook and the quack of a duck, not very unlike that 
of the Pochard, but less deep, and sharper. 
VERY LITTLE is known of the nicification of this species 
beyond, what Wolley gathered from the ‘people of Finland 
