9 6 British Diving Ducks 
When the last chick came down she immediately swam at the head of her brood in the direction of some 
reeds close to, in which they vanished." 
Like other females of the genus, the Golden-Eye surrounds her eggs with down, and 
if she leaves the nest covers the eggs with it. During the latter part of incubation she sits 
very close, and will allow the nesting hole or box to be struck by a stick without causing 
her to move. During incubation the male only visits the female somewhat casually when 
she goes to feed in the evening, and after the young are hatched he goes off with other males 
and deserts her altogether. 
I noticed the young catching quantities of insects on the surface, and do not think that 
they dive much in the first few days of life. I also have seen female Golden-Eyes take food 
from the bottom and break it up for the young, and even in their early stages these birds 
have a preference for animal food, for on the rivers where most of the young are reared there 
are no water plants to speak of In a very few days young Golden-Eyes dive for their own 
food, and their up-growth is similar to other species of diving ducks. In Norway they 
seem to leave the rivers after a time and work their way to the higher lakes by the end of 
August, keeping well to the centre of wide open stretches of water, where the family may be 
seen in little dark clusters. 
In the feathers of this species may be found a parasitic insect, docophorus icterodes and 
d. chrysophitalmus, common in other ducks, and trinotum luridum, and in the intestines 
many of the worms of the genus echinorhynchus, tcenia, strongylus, &c. 
On rivers and small sheets of water Golden-Eye are not difficult to shoot, although 
they are amongst the toughest of the small ducks and must be hit well forward. Unless 
repeatedly fired at they usually come over the gunner fairly high, but well within shot of a 
full-choked 12-bore, and it is only necessary on lakes to find their breaking-out point, and 
on narrow rivers some spot where one may lie hidden to successfully drive this duck and 
obtain a fair chance. I have killed some numbers of this duck in Highland rivers by merely 
sending one driver some miles up stream away from the river and causing him to walk down 
along the bank. Golden-Eye can be seen or heard approaching from some distance, and it 
is merely necessary to hide on the bank to obtain a shot, as the birds carefully follow every 
turn of the river as they fly down stream. On large sheets of water and estuaries it is more 
difficult to shoot Golden- Eyes, but I have been very successful in killing these birds on the 
Eden estuary by following the main channel down stream at low water and waiting under 
the shelter of some low mussel-bank, where I knew the birds were in the habit of crossing 
as they came in from the sea to feed. Most of the males figured I shot in this way, and 
could have killed large numbers had I wished to do so, but as their flesh is of no value from 
a culinary point of view, I never killed more than what I required for specimens for myself 
and other collectors. It is rare, indeed, to obtain a shot at passing Golden-Eye on the open 
sea, but in the Moray and Beauly Firths I had often shot them from the punt as I came 
homewards by getting them between the boat and the weed-strewn shore, over which they 
always seem disinclined to fly. 
A winged Golden-Eye is a difficult bird to recover, for unless the water is very calm it 
is hard to see it as it rises and again dives. They soon vanish if there is the slightest 
ripple, and if falling amongst rocks and weeds will stay out of sight with remarkable skill. 
Many gunners have assured me that this bird when wounded will hold on fast with its bill 
