The Velvet-Scoter 
73 
success. I did not mean to fire even a snap unless fairly sure of my aim, because it is 
sometimes possible to tire out even these skilled divers if conditions are propitious. At 
last, after one of those sudden " doubles " which we had successfully anticipated, we got 
the bird jammed in on the coast near the rocks of Cava, and he rose for a moment. As I 
had hoped, he hesitated and lifted his head, just for one instant, uncertain in which line to 
dive. That momentary error on his part cost him his life. The gun went off, and the 
red legs were kicking the air, and I had killed what to me was a specimen of great value. 
Both the male and female Velvet-Scoter make a hoarse, guttural cry like the words 
" kra-kra-kra." The male probably had a distinct call during courtship, but no one, so far 
as I know, has ever seen the mating display of these birds. 
The food of this species consists chiefly of conchylia and Crustacea, which they gain 
from a considerable depth. I have found their stomachs filled with large numbers of the 
common mussel, which seems to be their principal food, mixed with quantities of sand and 
small pebbles. They are also very partial to the razor-shell in Orkney. I have also seen 
them bring to the surface quite large crabs, which they break up before swallowing. The 
Great Black-backed Gull often waits on in attendance of feeding Velvet-Scoters, and I have 
more than once seen these clever robbers swoop down and steal the crab, the duck merely 
gazing round in surprise when he finds his treasure gone. 
MacGillivray states that in Scottish waters this duck feeds exclusively on bivalve 
mollusca of the genera Mactra, Tellina, Solen, Mytilus, Cardmm, and others. The gizzards 
of specimens killed in Kirkcaldy Bay were filled exclusively with Donax trunculus. 
Naumann gives some interesting notes on the food, especially in fresh water. He says 
{Naturgesch. Vdgel Mitteleuropas, x. p. 256) : 
" With regard to its food, the Velvet-Scoter resembles the Common Scoter most closely. Conchylia 
are the chief food with them too, and much less frequendy small Crustacea, insects, worms, and small 
fish ; and if on fresh water they also eat (and this is much more frequent) shoots of roots, buds and seeds 
of submerged plants, and with it they swallow a great deal of sand and small pebbles. In birds which 
have appeared on our lakes and ponds, especially in young birds coming to us in the late autumn, we 
noticed a great tendency to go to the banks after storms, where a great many water plants had been 
thrown up by the waves, and they carefully poked about in this, as a rule walking, and even if they were 
scared away, returned again to such places after a short time. The birds which were killed at that dme 
had their stomachs full of a great deal of green stuff, pieces of roots, tubers, and seeds of different water 
plants, few remains of insects, but always a great many water snails. They procure these and other 
means of subsistence much more frequently, or as a rule by diving under to the bottom of the water ; and 
they are to be seen ceaselessly vanishing and reappearing on the broad expanses of our lakes as well as 
on the sea, and yet again diving even when the bottom is several fathoms deep ; and they have even 
been seen to dive at a depth of 14 metres and procure conchylia which lie at the bottom, or might at 
most be found a couple of feet higher sticking between sea-grass or sea-weed, and such have been found 
in the stomachs of birds which have been killed. On the Baltic, especially in the Bay of Kiel, the 
common cockle {Cardium edtde) and the mussel {^Mytihts edulis) are almost exclusively their chief food. 
Although they generally seek out the smaller specimens of these and fill the crop and gullet with them, 
specimens of the latter species are not infrequendy found amongst them which have a length of 3.5 cm. 
" Birds which have been caught can be fed and kept alive for a long while on these mussels. They 
swallow them right down, and the shells are passed in the excrement in such- a broken state that they 
might be taken for slate-like sand." 
Just before they depart to their summer homes the male Velvet-Scoters indulge in 
some part of their spring display, but I have never been near enough to a flock to see 
VOL. II. 
« 
