SCAUP DUCK. 
427 
solitary lakes as high as the birch wood grows. At what¬ 
ever season the Scaup Duck is shot it is generally very 
fat and heavy. The eggs are five or six in number.” 
The egg, which I have figured from the collection of 
Sir William Milner, was taken by his brother, Mr. Henry 
Milner, in Iceland, between the 27th of June and the 
5th of July. He took the eggs of this species on the 
river Laxa, and on the islands in the Lake Myvatn. 
Mr. Wolley's remarks when speaking of the Scaup 
Duck, though rather long, are too interesting to be cur¬ 
tailed. He writes: “I had not recognised the Scaup 
Duck at all amongst the innumerable flocks and families 
of water-fowl I had seen on the Torneo and Muonio rivers 
in 1853, but many of the natives had talked of a large 
kind of ‘ Sorrti' (tufted duck), which seemed to be this 
bird. Soon after the ice was washed out of the river at 
Muonioniska last spring, I commenced an ‘ upping ' to¬ 
wards the mountains of the Norwegian frontier. After 
about a week's punting and towing we came to the head 
quarters of Scaup and long-tailed duck * * * * the 
wider and stiller parts of the river were studded with 
pairs of this conspicuous bird. At the remote peasant's 
house, called Nyimakka, I examined several which had 
been caught on artificial floating islets, where the birds 
get entangled in snares as they climb up to rest and 
plume themselves. On a little moor, at the head of a 
quiet reach of the river, just where a fierce torrent swept 
into it, I found a nest which an ermine had lately ran¬ 
sacked, but the favourite little islands where they regu¬ 
larly breed were not yet quite free from snow. Some ten 
days later, when there should have been eggs upon these 
islands, they were mostly under water from the unusually 
high floods caused by the sudden melting of the snow in 
the mountains, and the real danger for our lives as we 
