Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/77

Rh light-coloured patch on the back between the shoulders. They were very wary, and would not permit us to approach sufficiently close to identify them. I did not again see them until the 18th of April, when I observed them diving for food in the channel just opposite Moyview. They had a habit of retiring at low water to the lonely part of the channel near the bay to rest on the sand, and then, with the rising tide, returning to feed between Moyview and Castleconnor, and occasionally higher up the river, within a mile or two of Ballina. Until the 12th of May I was unable to satisfy myself as to what they really were; but on that day I obtained a close view of them from behind a wall at Killanly, while they were diving close to the shore, and I was then pretty sure that they were Eiders, a species which I had never met with here before. Being seldom on the water after the latter date, I did not see anything of these ducks until the month of July, when I observed one of them flying down the channel near Bartragh, and the salmon fishermen, to whom it was well known as the "big duck," told me they had remarked only one bird frequenting the river all the season, its companion having disappeared shortly after I had seen the pair together on the 12th of May. Early in September I saw the single bird again near Moy Fort, within a few hundred yards of the Shipping Quay; and on the 6th of October, as I was returning home from Ballina, I observed it swimming up a small bay ending in a narrow marshy creek near Killanly. It being a very high spring-tide, the creek was completely filled up to the mouth of the little stream, and if the duck got up the narrow part between the banks, it would be concealed from view of the road, and would probably rest there, for some time at least, while the tide was high. Being determined, if possible, to obtain this bird, having already failed so often in doing so, I hastened home for my boat; but as all the men were employed on a distant part of the farm I had no one to row. Not to lose a chance, therefore, two young ladies accompanied me in the boat, and we rowed up the little bay. We saw nothing of the bird until we got nearly to the head of the creek, when he appeared swimming down between the rushy banks. Before coming within shot, however, he dived, passing right under the boat, and did not show himself until outside of us, when he dived again, so quickly after rising to the surface that I found it extremely difficult to shoot him. However, after a smart and most exciting chase of nearly a quarter of a mile, he became rather blown, and being unable to dive so quickly as at first, I got a fair shot and knocked him over, not at all too soon, for my crew were getting exhausted. It proved to be an immature male Eider, and when presenting it to the Royal Dublin Society's Museum, I asked the taxidermist to ascertain whether there were any old wounds such as would account for the bird not migrating to its usual summer haunts. He afterwards assured me he had discovered no trace whatever of any wound beyond the recent shot-marks, and that the bird was in first-rate condition. In the month of December