[Illustration]
The weight of this species varies from twenty-six ounces to two pounds.
The length is nineteen inches, and the breadth thirty-one. The bill is
bluish-black, short, thick, and elevated at the base; the head large,
slightly crested, and black, or rather of a glossy bottle-green, with
violet reflections; a large white spot is placed on the space on each
side between the corners of the mouth and the eyes, the irides of which
are of a golden-yellow; the throat, and a small portion of the upper
part of the neck, are of a sooty or velvet-black; the lower, to the
shoulders, the breast, belly, and vent, white; but some of the
side-feathers, and those which cover the thighs, are tipped with black;
the scapulars white and deep black; of the latter colour are also the
adjoining long tertial feathers, and those on the greater part of the
back; the first fourteen primary quills, with all the outside edge of
the wing, including the ridge and a portion of the coverts, are brownish
black; the middle part of the wing is white, crossed by a narrow black
stripe, which is formed by the tips of the lesser coverts; tail dark,
hoary brown; legs short, of a reddish yellow colour, with the webs
dusky; the inner and hinder toes are furnished with lateral webs; on the
latter these webs are large and flapped. Willoughby says, “the windpipe
hath a labyrinth at the divarication, and besides, above swells out into
a belly or puff-like cavity.”
These birds do not congregate in large flocks, nor are they numerous on
the British shores, or on the lakes in the interior. They are late in
taking their departure northward in the spring, the specimens before
mentioned being shot in April. In their flight they make they air
whistle with the vigorous quick strokes of their wings; they are
excellent divers, and seldom set foot on the shore, upon which, it is
said, they walk with great apparent difficulty, and, except in the
breeding season, only repair to it for the purpose of taking their
repose.
The attempts which were made by M. Baillon to domesticate these birds,
he informs the Count de Buffon, quite failed of success.
* * * * *
An extraordinary occurrence took place, March, 1810, near Drumburgh, a
fisherman, placed a flounder-net in the river Eden, which is subject to
the flux and reflux of the tide, and on his returning to take up his
net, instead of finding fish, he found it loaded with wild ducks; during
his absence, a fleet of these birds had alighted below the net, and on
the flowing of the tide, were carried, from the contraction of the
channel, with great impetuosity into the net, and were drowned. He
caught one hundred and seventy golden-eyed wild ducks, supposed to be
from the Orkneys, as very rarely any of that species frequent that part
of the country.—_Bewick._