74 British Diving Ducks 
what takes place. I have seen what I took to be a slight lift from the water, and 
this is probably accompanied by a throat swell and some note, so that we must presume, 
until we have more complete evidence, that the male Scoters are in no way distinct in 
their courtship attitudes from other diving ducks. It is, in fact, unlikely that the court- 
ship differs much from that of the Eider, but information on this point is wanted. Velvet- 
Scoters leave the German, Danish, and British coasts late in March or early in April. 
Possibly 80 per cent, of the adult birds leave at this time, but a certain number both 
of adults and immatures remain throughout the year in their winter resorts. I have 
notes to the effect that I have seen Velvet-Scoters in every month of the year, but in 
the summer these nearly always consist of single individuals, or small numbers such as 
two or three. As previously stated, they are fairly tame until August, when the usual 
shyness, due to flight-incapacity, causes them to adopt means to guard their safety ; 
and like the Eider they are not confiding again until fully capable of flight in mid- 
September. 
Velvet-Scoters arrive on the lakes of Norway and Sweden about the end of April 
— in fact, as soon as the ice breaks up, and even earlier on the lake-swamps of Lithuania, 
which seems to be about the southern limit of nesting birds. The male and female are 
much devoted to one another and keep close together during the early part of the 
nesting season. It has often been noticed that if one of the pair is shot the other will 
fall to the water and dive or stay close to its fallen mate. 
They seem to prefer inland lakes and small ponds on which to breed. Collett has 
found them breeding in large numbers in the hill lakes of Gudbrandsdal, Valders, Osterdal, 
and north to Finmark, and I have myself seen females and young birds on the lakes 
of Valders and Trondhjem in September, the males having departed. 
The nest is often found in a depression of the dry ground in the open, at other times 
sheltered by brushwood such as salix or juniper. C. E. Pearson found one nest in a clump 
of marram grass amongst sandhills. Others were placed deep down in cracks of the peat, 
overgrown by Empefrum nigrum, so that the sitting duck was carefully concealed. See- 
bohm found several nests in the Siberian tundra far from the water, whilst Knobloch says 
the Velvet-Scoter sometimes breeds in forests. The nest is usually a deep hollow lined 
with grass and leaves. The earliest clutches are to be met with in the Baltic, and are 
to be found from May 25 onwards, but in Lapland it is more usual to find eggs in 
June and generally in the second half of that month. H. F. Witherby took a clutch 
of eggs on July 22 in Russian Lapland, and Seebohm found eggs on the Petschora in 
July. Six to ten eggs are usually laid, and incubation is by the female alone. As to 
the period of incubation no data are available. 
The males appear to desert the females about the time the young are hatching. 
E. F. von Homeyer says : "I have often seen flocks of 60 to 100, consisting of old males 
only, in the months of July and August, and these spent the day on the high sea and at 
dusk came to the shallower water on the coasts and in the bays of the island of Riigen." 
According to Pleske, they nest in such numbers in the island of Rugoe in Esthland 
(Russian Baltic Provinces), that the inhabitants make ornaments for their rooms with 
the blown eggs. All the habits of this duck, the upbringing of the young, and the early 
departure of the males for the sea, seem to be similar to other true sea-ducks. Late in 
