THE AMERICAN GOLDEN-EYE. 
We watch the hunters creeping near 
Or crouching - in the silvery grasses; 
Their gleaming guns our greatest fear, 
As high o'erhead our wild flock passes. 
But we are of the air, and speed 
Ivike meteors dropping from the sky; 
He's " the man behind the gun" indeed 
Who can fairly wing a Golden-eye. 
POR beauty this bird will compare 
favorably with any of the fam- 
ily except the Wood Duck, 
whose colors are more various 
and brilliant. Whistler is the name by 
which it is more commonly known, 
from the peculiar noise of wings made 
while flying. In spite of its short, heavy 
body and small wings, it covers im- 
mense distances, ninety miles an hour' 
being the speed credited to it by Audu- 
bon, who, however, was not always accu- 
rate in his calculations. It is an abun- 
dant species throughout the fur coun- 
tries, where it frequents the rivers and 
fresh-water lakes in great numbers. It 
breeds as far north as Alaska, where, on 
the Yukon,-it nests about the middle of 
June. Like the Wood Duck, it makes 
its nest in hollow trees and decayed 
trunks. This consists of grass, leaves, 
and moss, lined with down from the 
bird's breast. The eggs are from six 
to ten in number, and ashy green in 
color. 
The Golden-eye is a winter visitant to 
Illinois. On Long Island it is better 
known among the hunters as the 
"Whistler," and by others it is also 
called the "Great-head," from its beau- 
— C. C. M. 
tifully rich and thickly crested head. 
On that island it is said to be a not very 
abundant species, arriving there in com- 
pany with other migratory Ducks. Mr. 
Girand met with it in the fall and spring- 
on the Delaware and in Chesapeake 
bay. Its food consists of small Shell 
and other Fish, which it procures by 
diving. In the fall the flesh of the 
Golden-eye is very palatable. It is very 
shy and is decoyed with great difficulty. 
In stormy weather it often takes shel- 
ter in the coves with the Scoup Duck, 
and there it may be more readily killed. 
Naturally the Golden-eye is chiefly seen 
in company with the Buffle-head, the 
Merganser, and other species that are 
expert divers like itself. When wounded, 
unless badly hurt, its power of diving 
and remaining under water is said to be 
so remarkable that it cannot be taken. 
The Golden-eyes always have a senti- 
nel on the watch to announce the ap- 
proach of an enemy. They have been 
very little studied in their haunts. The 
word Clangula indicates in some degree 
the tone of their voices. They swim 
under water like fish, out of which they 
can bound upward and make off with 
prodigious speed. 
GOLDEN ROD. 
A lady who has lately been making a 
visit in the West was telling the other 
day about the forlorn aspect of the 
country out that way to her. "Even 
the Golden-rod," she said; "you can't 
imagine how scraggly and poor it looks, 
compared with our magnificent flowers 
along the road here. I wonder what 
makes the Western Golden-rod so infe- 
rior." The very next day there arrived 
at her house a relative whom she had 
been visiting when she was in the West. 
He sat on the veranda, and looked in- 
dulgently — even admiringly — at the 
landscape, and praised its elements of 
beauty. But as his eye ran along the 
roadside near by, he said: "But there is 
one thing that we are ahead of you in — 
you have no such splendid Golden-rod 
here as we have out West! The Gold- 
en-rod growing along that road, now, is 
tame and poor compared with ours." 
What a blessed thing it is that the gold 
of our own waysides is richer than the 
gold of all other waysides! 
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