156 
ANATIM. 
[golden-eye] by day, when be dives yon must run; and tbe 
moment he comes up, squat down. So you may go on till within 
ten yards of him, and then stand ready to shoot him as he flies 
up, which he will do on coming up again and seeing you suddenly 
appear so close.'”* The only difference in Sir W. Jardine's 
observations, is, that he has in this manner approached within shot 
of several curres ” diving simultaneously, f This is also a 
Connaught practice. Of the golden-eye on inland waters there, it 
is remarked by a correspondent— “ They appear rather early on 
the rivers, and feed in the shallows and fords. There is a pecu- 
liarity in the whole flock diving simultaneously : I have many 
times remained at a distance until they were all down, and then 
had a run for it, and been within range when they came up. 
They are not so plentiful as the pochard.” J I remember being 
once much amused by witnessing from Ormeau Bridge, over the 
Lagan, near Belfast, a simultaneous operation of the kind de- 
scribed, on the part of four golden-eyes. They were close to the 
edge of the river, and so extremely busied feeding as to be 
generally quite beneath the water, though, from its shallowness, 
hardly requiring to dive. Their appearance at the surface was 
so momentary that they evidently came up only to breathe, and 
the rapidity with which they en masse went beneath it again, was 
almost ludicrous : the rapid curling of the water above them 
betrayed of itself a busy scene beneath. 
The golden-eye occasionally resorts to very small ponds as well 
as rivers — an attack made on one that unfortunately visited a 
pond at the .Falls will be found noticed in the first volume of 
this work, under Peregrine Falcon. 
The food observed in several of these ducks examined by me 
in different years from November to March was various : six pro- 
cured on fresh-water exhibited the remains of subaquatic plants, 
seeds, insects and their larvse, together with entomostracous Crus- 
tacea of the genus Cypris — of five killed on the sea (Belfast Bay) 
one included a shrimp with the remains of other Crustacea ; a 
* ‘ Instructions to Young Sportsmen,’ p. 310, 6th edit. 
f ‘ Brit. Birds,’ vol. iv. p. 152. \ Mr. G. Jackson. 
