Barrow's Golden-Eye 105 
which regularly attacks the females of all diving ducks and seizes their young, and the 
Iceland Falcon, Falco rusticolus islandicus, which kills a few of the adults. 
There was hardly a morning or evening when I stayed at Myvatn, in June-July 1889, 
that we did not see one or other of these two species harrying the ducks/ Sitting in the 
tent to escape the awful plague of flies, a sudden roar of startled ducks would be heard, and 
on my going to investigate there was the falcon, with perhaps two young birds in attendance, 
bearing off some victims of its prowess. None of the ducks seemed to be unusually scared 
when the falcons passed by, as they often did, by day and night. They crouched on the 
water or rushed with their broods under the banks and hid as well as possible. It was 
only after the stoop and kill, when the bird of prey came on to their own level, that there was 
a general stampede of these ducks in the immediate vicinity of the murder. 
One morning (July 3rd) my brother, sister, and myself were having breakfast, and were 
treated to an unusually fine spectacle. A large adult White-tailed Eagle came floating up 
from the lake and following the course of the river. Every duck that was capable of rising 
got up and flew before him, and passed our camp within 40 or 50 yards. There must have 
been 500 or 600 ducks in this royal procession, and his majesty took not the slightest notice 
of them, but stayed for a while over an open arm of the river, where we saw him clumsily 
dash down and seize a large trout that must have weighed three or four pounds, which he 
took to an adjacent rock to devour. I surmised that the ducks, in trusting themselves in 
the air in front of the sea eagle, were not very frightened of him, but sufficiently scared to 
wish to get out of his way. This eagle probably only kills "cripples" and young birds 
unable to fly. 
^ The methods of the Skuas I shall describe later. 
