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THE GOLDEN-EYE DUCK, 
Morillon (female and young males), 
Clangula vulgaris , Leach. 
Anas clangula, Linn. 
Anas glaucion, Linn, (females and young males.) 
Is a regular winter visitant to the coast and inland 
waters. 
Belfast Bay . 
This bird is late in arrival here after the breeding season, the 
5th of October being the earliest date known to me. It remains 
generally the latest of the migratory ducks in spring, occa- 
sionally until May:* — on the 1st of June, 1840, a couple fre- 
quented a particular part of the bay. This species exhibits its 
partiality for fresh or brackish water by feeding chiefly in the 
creeks — or “ gullets,” as they are here called — at extreme ebb, 
and but rarely at the margin of the flowing tide. It does not, like 
the wigeon and other ducks, frequent the banks exposed at low 
water as feeding-ground, nor does it, like them, fly at dusk ; it 
is a day-feeding bird. 
Golden-eyes come to the bay every season, and their numbers 
are not considered to be increased by severe winters. They are 
less numerous than the scaup, are particularly given to diving, 
and more expert at it than either scaup or pochard. They are 
wilder than these and the other diving ducks, and difficult to be 
approached within range even of the swivel-gun. They generally 
keep by themselves in little parties which rarely come near the 
shore ; but in very fine weather I have not unfrequently known 
single immature birds to be killed from the road bordering the bay. 
Occasionally, however, they associate with other species : of eight 
ducks killed at a shot on the 30th November, 1838, there were five 
* At Ballydrain lake, three birds, females or young males, were observed on the 
30th of April, 1848 : on the second of which month, in the following year, a flock 
of six adult males was there. 
