122 British Diving Ducks 
than two or three at a time. In diving, the head is first thrown well back and then 
plunged forward; the open tail and its two long feathers being thrown over till they 
touch the water on the other side. A wave of water is thrown up as each duck disappears. 
They remain under water and usually come up close to one another. Then they make 
their cheery calls, swimming rapidly to and fro with tails lying open on the surface or 
below the surface of the water,^ again make ready for another dive. 
When feeding, Long-tailed Ducks seem capable of diving to a greater depth than 
most of the genus except the Eider, the Scaup, and the Velvet Scoter. Usually their 
feeding grounds are in ten to thirty feet of water, and they seem able to remain below 
in considerable currents. The whole flock sometimes dive together, but more often 
in twos and threes, leaving no sentries on the surface, and usually remain below from 
half a minute to one minute. In diving they use the feet only, and turn and twist to 
avoid sea-weed with great skill. Often they descend to the bottom in spiral curves. 
Their principal food in winter is Conchilia, both monovalve and bivalve, particularly 
Mytilus edulis, Cardium edule, and tellina cornea. They also devour small crabs and fish. 
In the Orkneys and Shetlands and on the East Coast of Scotland their food is generally 
small common mussels, but on the Dornoch Sands I have found their stomachs full of 
small cockles and crabs. In summer they eat largely the roots, seeds, buds, and young 
shoots of various water-plants as well as insects and worms, but this diet seems to be 
more eaten by the young. In the winter it is difficult to drive Long-tailed Duck away 
from their regular feeding haunts, and they will return again and again to them in spite of 
constant shooting. I remember one afternoon in December 1887, when in a small launch 
in Leith Bay, the Long-tails kept on coming in from the sea the whole afternoon. After 
being shot at they went out to sea and returned again in a few minutes. I have never 
seen so many Long-tails, all immatures, in the Forth estuary as on that day, and they 
seemed quite callous of shots fired at them at close range. As a rule their winter 
feeding-grounds are situated on the open sea itself, but during severe weather and in 
north-easterly gales I have seen large numbers come up the narrow estuaries of the 
Eden in Fife and the Little Ferry in Sutherland. One winter day in 1892 the whole 
of the flock of birds in Golspie Bay moved in small parties up the narrow neck where 
the tide flows from the Little Ferry into the sea, and some hundreds passed within 
easy gun-range in the course of a couple of hours. They flew low over the water and 
alighted in the swift tideway, about 200 to 500 yards, in the land-locked firth, where 
they at once commenced feeding. The stream was so swift that they could only make 
a few dives before being forced to fly up stream again to reach the mussel beds. Had I 
wished to do so, and could my dog have borne the strain of retrieving from the tide-race, 
I could have killed a very large number that day, but after shooting four adults I left 
them alone. In the Iceland rivers, where they seem to get most of their food (small 
freshwater mussels and fish) by diving, they are extraordinarily tame. At my camp 
by the Myvatn farm-house on the bank of the Skalfandi Laxa there was a pool in the 
river situated not twelve yards from where we sat, dined, or skinned our birds, and here 
were always five or six male Long-tailed Ducks and an occasional Barrow's Golden-Eye 
feeding at all hours, quite unconcerned at our talking and movements. When feeding 
^ I noticed Mr. St. Quintin's birds always opened the tail when about to dive for food. 
