SCOLOPAX. 



453 



Of all the aquatic birds we have had, that have been taken alive from 

 their natural wild habits, none have appeared so familiar as the Scaup ; 

 after feeding- a few days with bread soaked in water, they will take to 

 eating* barley freely. This species is never taken in a decoy, and 

 rarely observed upon fresh water, except where large rivers disembogue 

 into the sea ; or in lakes close to the sea. 



The manner in which our specimens were taken, was quite acci- 

 dental. On some parts of our flat coast, where the tide recedes for a 

 considerable distance, the fishermen place their nets in a semicircular 

 form at low water, so that on the return of the water at the next ebb, 

 all the fishes within the vortex of the net are cut off, and with them 

 sometimes a Scaup, or a scoter. These birds finding- some resistance, 

 attempt to avoid the obstacle by diving-, and by such continued efforts 

 are at last incapable of flying-, and easily taken alive, unless they get 

 entangled in the net under water, and are drowned, which sometimes 

 happens. 



In point of size the female is not much inferior to the male. The 

 weight of the one under examination is twenty-one ounces ; length 

 eighteen inches and a half. The bill, like that of the male, is very 

 broad, a trifle dilated at the end, and, from being considerably com- 

 pressed, appears to reflect a little, and is of a dusky lead-colour, punc- 

 tured round the nail, which last is black ; irides bright yellow ; the 

 head is large and well clothed with chocolate-brown feathers, those on 

 the crown longest ; round the base of the bill is a band of yellowish- 

 white, occupying the space of half an inch next to the upper mandible, 

 decreasing from thence to the chin ; the neck is brown ; breast the 

 same, tinged with tawny ; upper part of the back dusky, the ends of 

 the feathers greyish ; the lower back, and coverts of the wings, dusky 

 black, tinged with changeable green ; scapulars the same, minutely 

 speckled with grey, and mixed with some plain dark brown feathers.* 



SCLAVONIAN GREBE.— A name for the Horned Grebe. 



SCOLOPACIDiE (Vigors.)—* Snipes, a family of Waders.* 



SCOLOPAX (Illiger.) — * Snipe, a genus thus characterised. 

 Bill long, straight, compressed, slender, soft, bulged at the point ; the 

 two mandibles furrowed about the half of their length ; the point of 

 the upper mandible longer than the under, the bulged part forming a 

 hook ; ridge elevated at its base and salliant ; nostrils, at the sides of 

 the base, slit lengthwise, near the edges of the mandible, covered by a 

 membrane ; legs of mean length, slender, the naked space above the 

 knee very small ; three toes before entirely divided, the middle and the 

 outer ones rarely united ; one toe behind ; wings of mean length, the 



