135 



SCOTEE DUCK. 

 ANAS NIGRA. 

 [Plate LXXII— Fig. 2.] 



he Macrmse^ Bmss. VI, p. 420. -pi, S8.f g. 2. — ^Buff. IX, p. 234. pZ. 16. — PI. Enl, 9^8.— Bewick^ 

 II, p, 288. — ^rct. Zool. JVo. 484 — ^Lath. Syn. Ill, p. 480. — ^Peaie's Museum, JV*o. 2658. 



THIS Duck is but little known along our sea coast, being 

 more usually met with in the northern than southern districts; 

 and only during the winter. Its food is shell fish, for which it is 

 almost perpetually diving. That small bivalve so often mention- 

 ed, small muscles, spout fish, called on the coast razor handles^ 

 young clams, &c. furnish it with abundant fare ; and wherever 

 these are plenty the Scoter is an occasional visitor. They swim, 

 seemingly at ease, amidst the very roughest of the surf ; but fly 

 heavily along the surface, and to no great distance. They rarely 

 penetrate far up our rivers, but seem to prefer the neighbourhood 

 of the ocean ; differing in this respect from the Cormorant, which 

 often makes extensive visits to the interior. 



The Scoters are said to appear on the coasts of France in 

 great numbers, to which they are attracted by a certain kind of 

 small bivalve shell fish called vai?neauxy probably differing little 

 from those already mentioned. Over the beds of these shell fish 

 the fishermen spread their nets, supporting them, horizontally, at 

 the height of two or three feet from the bottom. At the flowing 

 of the tide the Scoters approach in great numbers, diving after 

 their favorite food, and soon get entangled in the nets. Twenty 

 or thirty dozen have sometimes been taken in a single tide. 

 These are sold to the Roman Catholics, who eat them on those 

 days on which they are forbidden by their religion the use of ani- 



