12.6 British Diving Ducks 
will not fly away if the female is shot, but even if flushed to wing he will return and meet 
a similar fate. The Esquimaux and Siberian natives kill large numbers in spring, owing to 
their tameness and affectionate nature. 
Riemschneider (Ornith. Mo7iatsschr., 1896, pp. 314-16) gives a very interesting account 
of the intense sexual excitement on the part of male Long-tailed Ducks during the early 
part of the breeding season at Myvatn : — 
" The ice-duck appeared in largest numbers at Skutustadir, though they were common too in the 
other breeding-colonies on the Myvatn. By day and night could be heard the beating of the wings of 
the Havella-Erpel at the windows of my lodging in the parsonage, and the panes were often touched by 
their wing-tips. The sounding call of these creatures was continuously to be heard, a sounding " a, ang, 
ang/iss," moving by thirds from low to high, if one could employ a musical notation to describe the cry 
of a bird. The male ice-duck were altogether in such excitement as I have never known any other 
species to be in, even if they had to experience a check owing to some intervening cold days, but this 
continued even into the first days of July, only gradually ceasing on the beginning of the summer 
moulting. Calling, beating the water with their wings, or rising noisily into the air, the male of the 
ice-duck took a considerable share in the many-voiced concert of birds, which only lessened slightly 
at the sun-bright midnight, without ever becoming quite silent. But if a female duck appeared, if it had 
left its nest only for a moment, then immediately a company of drakes appeared too, and they pursued 
her with their attentions, unwilling as she was, in a most persistent way, though she may only have been 
a female of the Fuligula marila or some other species. At such a time the sex-excitement of the 
Hiemalis males reached its highest point, as could be seen from the marvellous position which they 
assumed. Steering with its two extremely long glory feathers, the duck raised the latter so that they 
waved obliquely in the air ; and whilst the male uttered its call, the head and neck were thrown back 
so much that they almost touched the back, and the beak was held in a vertical position. 
" I have seen the ice-duck go through this manoeuvre in flying ; less experienced naturalists might 
then consider this bird as belonging to anything rather than a species of duck. 
" The females were still busy over the breeding in the second half of June, although it appears that 
the ice-duck begins to sit earlier than the other species here, for I saw a nest as early as June 22nd in 
which there was a young bird just hatched, half bare, together with two eggs of which the shells were 
cracked ; another nest in which there were some young in process of hatching. The female flew away 
from such nests only when you stretched out a hand to get her. On June 25th I saw a female leading 
seven young at the down stage, and after that mothers leading their brood were to be seen every day. 
When I left the Myvatn in the beginning of July there were only a few ice-duck still sitting on eggs. 
" I have only noticed the soiling of a sitting when the mother flies off as an exception with the 
ice-duck. 
" The outside date of arrival of the ice-duck in spring 1895 was given me as April 20th." 
I watched a newly-hatched brood of Long-tailed Ducks one day for a long time, and 
noticed that they took very little food for themselves. They caught a few flies, but most of 
their food was obtained by the mother diving incessantly and bringing up substances 
from the bottom and placing it before her brood. When she appeared they all kept up 
a gentle peeping " sound, and kept close together in a bunch, seldom running to catch flies 
as other young ducks do. After watching these birds for some time I wandered up the 
river to the Lake of Myvatn to look at a Scoter's nest, and on returning witnessed the attack 
of two Richardson's Skuas, a black and a white bellied one, on the same brood of Long- 
tailed Duck. The method of attack was exactly the same as I haye seen employed by 
Carrion Crows in Hyde Park. One Skua swooped down and distracted the mother's 
attention to one side by hovering over the water. The anxious parent opened her bill and 
