Golden-Eye 97 
to the roots of weeds and die in this position ; but this, I think, is somewhat of an exaggera- 
tion. I have often seen wounded Golden-Eye literally bury themselves in seaware and 
tangle, and have, when I have so noticed them, lain by in the punt overhead to see what they 
would do. Such is their tenacity that they could stay in one place until they died of their 
wounds or were drowned ; but I never saw one try to hold on with its bill, and if found 
with mouth closing on the weeds, it was so owing to the fact that in its dying moments the 
reeds held the bird fast and it gripped them in its mouth. More generally, if only winged, 
the bird will remain in its position of safety for a minute to a minute and a half, and then 
sneak to the surface beside some seaweed, and just put its bill up and go down again, or lie 
hidden under the fronds. 
On the Continent a few Golden-Eye are caught by the horizontal net set at sea, 
but more are captured in the north of Germany and in Holland by the following method : 
A small hut is built in the rocks or embankment of some large lake in a place where 
the water is shallow. Over an extent in front of the hut the operator stretches the 
two large nets under water at no great depth, and other nets of equal size which can 
be worked by lines from the hut are set ready to be drawn. A few stuffed Golden-Eye 
fixed on posts at the water-line act as decoys, and the birds on the lake being moved 
they soon see the decoys and settle amongst them, when all ducks within the net area 
are easily captured. 
I have shot most of the diving ducks to decoys, and have found that they only 
came at all freely to painted models or stuffed birds of their own species, but I have not 
tried shooting Golden-Eye to decoys. On the eastern coast of North America a few are 
shot to decoys, but they do not come to them very freely. The usual winter method 
of shooting them in the New World is by means of an ice-boat rigged on a sledge and 
pulled out to the edge of the ice. Sportsmen who have shot the birds by this method 
tell me they are very wary and often only stoop from the sky and rest a moment 
before they discover the hidden shooter and are off again. 
Golden-Eyes are somewhat mischievous on fish-ponds, and will destroy large quantities 
of young trout and other small fish. 
There is a remarkable hybrid between this species and the Smew Mergus albelhts in 
the ducal Natural History Museum, Brunswick. It is an adult male, and was killed in the 
spring of 1825 on the river Oker, near Brunswick. The bird resembles both species, and was 
at one time thought to be a distinct species. Four other hybrids between these two species 
are known, and for long the cross was known as Mergus anataruis. The second specimen, 
a female, was killed on February 8, 1829, on a small pond near Reuthendorf.^ The third 
was caught in the Isefjord, N.E. Seeland, in 1851. The fourth was shot on November 20, 
1881, in Kalmarskud, and is now in the Museum of Upsala. The fifth was shot in the 
vicinity of Poel in Mecklenburg, and is now in the collection of Oscar Wolschke. 
So far this hybrid has not occurred in Britain. I think that the Golden-Eye would 
mate with Barrow's Golden-Eye, and it seems somewhat strange that no such hybrid is 
known. Only males, however, would be easy to identify. 
^ This specimen is no longer in the "Brehm " collection now at Tring (Hartert). 
VOL. I. 
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