The Pintail 
95 
County, and has still one of the eggs. He is of opinion that it annually nests 
there. 
During the winter in Europe the Pintail generally resorts to salt-water 
estuaries, resting during the day, sometimes far out at sea, and flighting in to 
its feeding-grounds at dusk. In its general habits it resembles the Wigeon, 
but its main characteristic is its shyness, owing to which it seldom remains 
till broad daylight on the mud-flats, preferring to make off to the sea at the 
first streak of dawn. So regular is this habit, and so great the care it takes 
to avoid the presence of man, that I have heard old shore shooters who shot 
regularly on the flats where Pintails nightly fed, declare that they had only 
seen one or two in their lives. It is not remarkable, therefore, that the 
species should now be found to be fairly common, in the north-east of 
Scotland for instance, where at one time it was considered extremely rare. 
The Pintail is always the first to move away at the least suspicion of danger. 
Up goes his long graceful neck, and after this danger signal is hoisted he 
never seems to settle down and get over his fears, as Mallard, Wigeon, or 
Teal, will often do. Frequently, if you are approaching Pintail with the punt 
they give no warning at all, but ' spring ' straight away from the position of 
repose, and the fowler only very rarely makes a successful shot at them by 
day. At night, when feeding on the Zostera, Pintail will mix indiscrimi- 
nately with Mallard and Wigeon, and a successful shot with the punt-gun in 
Scotland often includes all three species. At that time they scatter a good 
deal, just as they do when at rest by day ; so, apart from the noticeable 
feature of the drake's head and neck, they may be recognised by the loose 
formation of the pack, so disheartening to the punt-gunner. Pintail also sit 
high at the stern, and sometimes partially erect the tail at an angle of 75°, but 
never in the perpendicular as the long-tailed duck does. I once counted 
eleven hundred of them sunning themselves on the sandy shore of the 
Dornoch Firth, and these stretched in a line for over a mile. The next day 
they were feeding in little scattered parties of a dozen. They paddled along, 
