212 
ANAS NIGRA. 
back, sbe swims with them a few yards, and then dives, 
and leaves them floating on the water ! In this situation 
they soon learn to take care of themselves, and are 
seldom afterwards seen on the land, but live among the 
rocks, and feed on insects and sea weed.” 
Some attempts have been made to domesticate these 
birds, but hitherto without success. 
269 . ANAS NIGRA , LINN^US AND WILSON. — SCOTER DtJCK. 
WILSON, PLATE LXXII. FIG. II. EDINBURGH COLLEGE MUSEUM. 
This duck is but little known along our sea coast, 
being more usually met with in the northern than 
southern districts, and only during the winter. Its 
food is shell fish, for which it is almost perpetually 
diving. That small bivalve so often mentioned, small 
muscles, spout fish, called on the coast, razor handles, 
young clams, &c. furnish it with abundant fare ; and, 
wherever these are plenty, the scoter is an occasional 
visitor. They swim, seemingly at ease, amidst the very 
roughest of the surf, but fly heavily along the surface, 
and to no great distance. They rarely penetrate far up 
our rivers, but seem to prefer the neighbourhood of 
the ocean, differing in this respect from the cormorant, 
which often makes extensive visits to the interior. 
The scoters are said to appear on the coasts of France 
in great numbers, to which they are attracted by a 
certain kind of small bivalve shell fish called vaimeaux , 
probably differing little from those already mentioned. 
Over the beds of these shell fish the fishermen spread 
their nets, supporting them, horizontally, at the height 
of two or three feet from the bottom. At the flowing 
of the tide the scoters approach in great numbers, 
diving after their favourite food, and soon get entangled 
in the nets. Twenty or thirty dozen have sometimes 
been taken in a single tide. These are sold to the Roman 
Catholics, who eat them on those days on which they 
are forbidden by their religion the use of animal food, 
fish excepted ; these birds, and a few others of the same 
