138 
ANATIDvE. 
females to one male, and of this sex only one bird in full 
adult plumage.* At night, as is not unusual, they now 
came to the quays of the town, and among the shipping, to 
feed, though the weather was moderate. A fowler, having fired 
at a flock here from his boat on a moonlight night, imagined on 
rowing to the spot that great execution had been done, from the 
circumstance of between twenty and thirty birds rising to the 
surface about the boat, all of which he considered had been 
wounded ; they had instead been simply feeding beneath, proof of 
which was soon given by their taking boldly to wing ; — with the 
exception of four birds that had been killed. About a hundred 
scaup ducks have been obtained in a week during seasons when 
they were most numerous. 
When scaups are near the shore, and shooters, having the 
wind in their favour, advance towards them in boats, they 
are sure of a shot, aS, though the birds may not admit of a sit- 
ting one, they will fly back over the water, rather than escape from 
the shooter by flying over the land. In this respect they differ 
from wigeon and other species, as, indeed, they do generally in 
their avoidance of flying over land; if, for instance, proceed- 
ing up an estuary river, they will follow all its sinuosities, while 
the wigeon, &c., will take the shortest course by making direct to 
the desired point. 
The scaup, though feeding by day, is a regular night-flying 
bird, as will be found noticed under Pochard, where also its mode 
* The following note on this species appears in my journal. “ Belfast , Feb. 20, 
1839. I saw to-day in one shop eight, and in another seven scaup ducks, each 
number killed at one shot in the bay. They were all adult birds : five of the eight 
were males. Although I call these adults, the whole of the breast was not of a full 
black, but at its lowest portion some of them exhibited deep mottled brown. Its 
upper portion and the neck were black in all, and their heads of the rich full green 
colour.” An experienced wild-fowl shooter and taxidermist, who has examined a 
great number of scaups in reference to the point, states, that he never saw young 
males display the white colour at the base of the bill, like old females, as they are 
generally described to do, but that birds of that sex w r ere always deficient in the 
white, whereas females of every age displayed it. The irides of birds of both sexes 
and all ages he has remarked to be yellow. One instance, however, of a male 
scaup having white for one-eighth of an inch at each side of the upper mandible, 
but none of this colour above it, has been made known to me. This bird was just 
beginning, at the end of February, to exhibit a few of the light-coloured waved feathers 
of the adult male. 
