Feathers on the back of the head elongated; head, neck, breast, and upper plumage black, with purple, green, and bronze reflections; speculum and under plumage white, except the abdomen, which is dusky; bill blue, nail black; irides bright yellow; feet bluish, with black membranes. Female—smaller, the crest shorter; upper plumage dull black, clouded with brown; under plumage reddish white, spotted on the breast and flanks with reddish brown. Length seventeen inches. Eggs greenish white spotted with light brown.
The points of difference in habit between this and the preceding species are so few that it is scarcely necessary to say more than that it is a regular winter visitor to the British Isles, and is distributed, generally in small flocks, never alone, over our lakes and marshes, arriving in October and taking its departure in March or April. Its food is less exclusively of a fishy nature than that of the Scaup Duck, consequently its flesh is more palatable, being, in the estimation of French gastronomists, un rôti parfait. The Tufted Duck now breeds in a good many districts here.
THE SCAUP DUCK
FULÍGULA MARÍLA
Head and upper part of the neck black, with green reflections; breast and rump black; back and scapulars whitish, marked with numerous fine wavy black lines; belly, flanks, and speculum, white; bill blue, the nail and edges black; irides bright yellow; feet ash-grey, with dusky membranes. Female—a broad whitish band round the base of the bill; head and neck dusky brown; breast and rump dark brown; back marked with fine wavy lines of black and white; flanks spotted and pencilled with brown, irides dull yellow. Length twenty inches. Eggs clay-buff.
The Scaup is so called from its feeding on 'scaup', a northern word for a bed of shellfish.[37] It is a northern bird, arriving on our coasts in October and November, and remaining with us till the following spring. During this time it frequents those parts of the coast which abound in shellfish, mostly diving for its food after the manner of the Scoters. On the coast of Norfolk, where Scaups often appear during winter in large flocks, they are called 'Mussel Ducks', a name no less appropriate than Scaup; for mussels, and indeed many other kinds of shellfish, as well as insects and marine plants, seem equally acceptable to them. Selby records a single instance of the Scaup having bred so far south as Sutherlandshire, a female having been seen in the month of June, accompanied by a young one. They have paired on Loch Leven. It is generally distributed along the shores of Great Britain, excepting on the south coast [of Ireland]. In August, 1861, I observed two birds swimming sociably on a small fresh-water loch in the island of Islay, which, upon examination through a telescope, appeared to me to be, one, a kind of Goose, the other decidedly a Duck of some kind. On inquiry I found that the former was a Bernacle Goose, which had been caught in a neighbouring island in the previous winter, and had been given to the laird's keeper, who pinioned it and turned it out on the loch to shift for itself. Of the Duck nothing was known, nor had it been observed before. It eventually proved to be an adult male Scaup Duck, but what had induced it to remain there all the summer in the society of a bird of a different tribe, is a question which I did not attempt to solve.
The Scaup Duck is very abundant in Holland during winter, covering the inland seas with immense flocks. It is found more sparingly in other continental countries. It breeds in the extreme north, both in the eastern and western hemispheres.
[37] 'Avis hæc the Scaup Duck dicta est quoniam scalpam, i.e. pisces testaceos fractos seu contritos, esitat.'—Willughby, p. 279.
THE GOLDEN EYE
CLANGÚLA GLAUCION
A white patch under the eye; head and neck black, lustrous with violet and green; back black; scapulars, great wing-coverts, speculum, and under parts, white; bill black; irides golden yellow; feet orange, with black membranes. Female—all the head and neck dark brown; feathers of the back dusky bordered with dark ash; greater wing-coverts white tipped with black; speculum and under parts white; tip of the bill yellowish, irides and feet pale yellow. Length eighteen and a half inches. Eggs buffy white.
This pretty, active little Duck is a regular winter visitant to the British shores, from autumn to spring, resorting to most of the localities frequented by other species, and frequently falling to the sportsman's gun, though little prized for the table. Females and young birds, called Mormons, are most numerous in England. They are very strong of flight, and are remarkable for making with their wings as they cleave the air a whistling sound, thought to resemble the tinkling of bells, whence the German name die Schelle Ente, Bell Duck, the Norfolk provincial name Rattle-Wing, and the systematic name Clangula. The young male does not make this noise, and having also dissimilar plumage from the adult, has been described by some authors as a distinct species under the name of Morillon.