. The birds of America : from drawings made in the United States and their territories . ut because it is comparatively small,and difficult to be obtained. Not only is it at all seasons remarkably shyand vigilant, but even if approached when on rocks, it plunges into thewater the moment its keen eye catches a glance of you, dives with all theagility of the Black Guillemot, and seldom rises within shot. If you shootat it when passing on wing, even should it be beyond reach, it plunges intothe water the moment it perceives the flash,—a habit which is also occasion-ally observed in the Black Guil
. The birds of America : from drawings made in the United States and their territories . ut because it is comparatively small,and difficult to be obtained. Not only is it at all seasons remarkably shyand vigilant, but even if approached when on rocks, it plunges into thewater the moment its keen eye catches a glance of you, dives with all theagility of the Black Guillemot, and seldom rises within shot. If you shootat it when passing on wing, even should it be beyond reach, it plunges intothe water the moment it perceives the flash,—a habit which is also occasion-ally observed in the Black Guillemot. It being usually found in flocks ofone or two families, or of from twelve to fifteen individuals, some onealways acts as a watchful sentinel, whose single note of alarm is sufficient toinduce the whole to move off without hesitation. Notwithstanding all thisvigilance, however, my party procured a good number of them at differenttimes, by lying in wait for them under cover of some rocks, in the neigh-bourhood of which they were known to alight at certain hours of the day, f V. THE HARLEaUIN DUCK. 375 to bask in the sun and dress their plumage. On these occasions a shotseldom failed to kill several, for they fly compactly and alight close together. On the 31st of May, 1S33, I found them breeding on White Head Island,and other much smaller places of a similar nature, in the same part of theBay of Fundy. There they place their nests under the bushes or amid thegrass, at the distance of twenty or thirty yards from the water. Farthernorth, in Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, they remove from thesea, and betake themselves to small lakes a mile or so in the interior, on themargins of which they form their nests beneath the bushes next to thewater. The nest is composed of dry plants of various kinds, arranged in a circularmanner to the height of two or three inches, and lined with finer eggs are five or six, rarely more, measure two inches and one-sixteenthby
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, bookidbirdsofa, booksubjectbirds
