154 
ANATIM. 
scaups, two pochards, and one golden-eye and several times 
during the ensuing month of December, the three kinds fell at 
one discharge from a swivel-gun. They appear in flocks of from 
fifteen to forty birds, but much more commonly in smaller num- 
bers. So many as from 150 to 200 golden -eyes, unmixed with 
any other species, have occasionally, but very rarely, been seen 
together; these large bodies do not come so far up the bay 
as the other diving ducks. Towards the end of January and be- 
ginning of February 1845, flocks containing about a thousand 
birds, of which the only species positively recognized were old 
male golden -eyes — and all may have been of this species — were 
frequently observed off Cultra quay. The beautiful adult male is 
much less frequently procured than the females and immature 
birds — not more than one for twenty of the latter. Sometimes none 
at all, and generally a few only will be seen in the largest flock. 
They are rarely here early in the season, but in the winter ending 
the year 1838, when the species was particularly numerous, 
several of them were procured by one of the wild-fowl shooters, in 
the months of October and November, before there had been any 
frost : the weight of one of these (a fine bird) was 2 lbs. 5 oz.* 
Of four golden eyes, killed at a shot here (December 18, 1847), 
two were adult males, — a circumstance mentioned on account of 
the rarity of two falling at the same discharge. 
Wild -fowl shooters remark that scaups, pochards, and tufted 
ducks never dive from the flash of the flint or percussion gun 
until wounded and unable to fly away ; but the golden-eye occa- 
sionally dives from both before being wounded. In one instance, 
an old male, fired at with a percussion gun from a distance of 
about twenty yards, dived before the shot could reach the spot ; 
and its emerging and flying right off from the bosom of the deep 
were the act of the same instant. It is difficult to obtain any of 
these diving ducks when wounded, and most of all the golden-eye, 
* The male is considered by Mr. Darragh as not attaining full size until it 
exhibits adult plumage. 
