British Diving Ducks 
their usual call of " Ek-ek-ek-ek," to which the males respond with a low or hoarse " Hu " 
or Heh-heh." These calls they also frequently make in winter, and I have heard single 
females uttering their cry constantly when flying, as if they had lost their companions and 
were seeking them. When they are paired both sexes utter a different note, " Gi-ak," and 
this note is used at all times when the pair meet, until the males leave the females at the 
end of June. Mr. Hantzsch is, I fancy, the only ornithologist who has witnessed the 
courtship of this duck, and I append a literal translation from his notes : — 
In the second half of May the birds swim up stream to their breeding islands. The pairs keep 
faithfully together, but they are also unfaithful with others of their kind. The male often swims round 
his mate uttering an enticing * Gia,' and at the same time rears up its short and strong neck, and at the 
same time brisdes up the feathers on the head, which is considerably thickened by hard, blackish swellings 
of the flesh in the upper and hinder parts. 
" The female answers rather more gently with the same call. At the same time the birds bow to 
one another, an attitude they also adopt when swimming. When danger threatens they call as a warn- 
ing a gentle ' du ' or ' da,' and when flying away they utter at times a frightened ' Gag-gag-gag.' " 
In searching for its food in the sea, the Harlequin Duck shows as much skill in diving 
in rough places as the Long-tailed Duck. It seems to prefer the vicinity of breakers and 
swirling eddies, and never seems at fault in such dangerous places. In summer they may 
generally be seen diving under waterfalls, often so close to the crashing torrent that their 
dusky forms are lost in the clouds of spray, and you wonder how such small bodies can 
live amid such a maze of strife. Yet time after time they emerge just on the lip of hundreds 
of tons of falling waters, and seem in no sense alarmed or put about even if suddenly 
whirled fifty feet by coming up too much in the stream. When you first see Harlequins on 
feed in such places you expect to see some catastrophe, but after the sight has become 
familiar and nothing happens, you regard it as a matter of course that the little duck knows 
all there is to be known about currents and falling bodies. Nearly all their food is obtained 
from the bottom of the sea or river, and they live chiefly on worms and bivalvular conckilia, 
crabs, crayfish, small fish, fish spawn, insects, and water plants. Faber found in the 
stomachs of birds he dissected in Iceland, Nerita, coucer pulex, and various water plants. 
Mr. L. M. Turner gives an account {Contrib. Nat, Hist. Alaska, pp. 134-5, 1886) of 
this species in its Alaskan home. He says : — 
" This pretty duck is not common in the immediate vicinity of Saint Michael's. South of that place 
it becomes more numerous, and extremely abundant around all the Aleutian Islands. It prefers the rocky 
places, exposed reefs, and shallow gravelly banks that are alternately covered or left bare by the sea. 
The food of this duck is of an animal nature. Shell-fish of all kinds do not come amiss, the common 
black mussel {3fytilis edulis) being its favourite food. These mussels are everywhere abundant on the 
rocks that are not exposed to too great a swash from the sea. Among the coves and small indentations 
of the sea, especially if in the neighbourhood of small islets, these ducks are to be found in great numbers. 
They dive after the mussels, and are frequently caught by the shell-fish and held until the former are 
drowned and cease their struggles, upon which they are released. This bird is not at all shy. They 
are, in the middle of winter, usually found singly or in small flocks. At this season they will even 
separate their ranks to allow a canoe to pass between them, or else fly a few yards and again settle. 
They usually are near the shore, searching the shallow, pebbly places for food when the surf is high. 
When a breaker comes over them they dive until it passes. At Attu I have seen them dive before a 
breaker struck them, and in such shallow water that I often wondered how they held on, as they came 
up at times not a foot from where they went down. They have a peculiar whistle for a note, and in the 
mating season, early in March, they assemble in larger flocks (sometimes as many as twenty or thirty 
