or oozy shores, and are numerous throughout the -winter
months on the coasts of Hampshire and Dorsetshire, where,
in company with Tufted Ducts, Golden Eyes, - and other
species, they are pursued by wild-fowl-shooters in their* gun-
punts, and also occasionally caught by fishermen in upright
nets fixed in curving lines, on perpendicular stakes in shal-x
low bays. The Scaup Duck, however, feeding on small fish,
mollusca, aquatic insects, and marine plants, is’-by no means
in request for the table, as its. flesh is generally coarse, dark
in colour and fishy in flavour. The greater part “o f its food
is obtained by diving, at which it 4 s very expert, but-like
most of the short-winged diving-ducks it gets upon wing from
the surface of the water but slowly, prefers Rising against
the wind, and flies at a moderate pace. What it wants,
however, in speed, it appears to make up by its caution, and
it is considered a difficult bird to approach. Its name of
Scaup Duck, is, according to Willugbby, derived from the
bird feeding among broken shells, which are called- scaup ;
but the name, is, perhaps, only a modification of our word
scoop, from the manner in which the bird uses its broad beak,
ploughing or scooping along the soft upper surface of mud
and ooze in search of food; as the Shoveler Duck, using its
beak in the same manner, isf in some countries, called the
Seopper-bill.
Colonel Montagu, who kept both sexes of this species alive
in confinement many years, observed “ that they associated
together apart from all other ducks, made the same grunting
noise, and both had the same, singular toss of the head, attended
with an opening of the’ bill, which, in the spring, is
continued for a considerable time while swimming and sport-
ins' on the water. This singular gesture would be sufficient
to identify the species were all other distinctions Wanting;
In the case, of one female which died, Montagu mentions that
the cause of death appeared to be in the. lungs, and in the
membrane that separates them from the other viscera; this
last was much thickened, and all the cavity within was covered
with mucor, or blue mould.?
\ “ I t is a most curious circumstance,” this writer adds, “ to
find this vegetable.production growing within a living animal,
and shows ! that where air is pervious, mould will be found to
obtain, iflsit. meets with sufficient moisture, and a place congenial
to vegetation. Now the fact fg& that the part on
which this [vegetable was growing was decayed, and had no
longer in itself, a living •.principle:; the dead part, therefore,
became the proper:pabulum of* the invisible • seeds of the
mucor., transmitted by- the air in respiration ;• and thus nature
carries all her , workscdminutablyf under; . .every possible
variatibniof. circumstan<|§f It. would, indeed, be impossible for
such tpyegetate* on a living body, .being incompatible with
vitalityy-afid we may be* assured»-that decay must take place
before-.this ■ minut&1ive§etabre.'can make a lodgment to aid in
the great change - of dicomposition. Even with inanimate
bodies, the appearance n f .mould or any species of fungi is a
sure «presage, of partial-decay and decomposition.?^;
■ M.- Deslongchamps■ has found, a similar growth lining the
aix-eells in ithe: lungs of - an Eider ' Duck ; * and Mr. Owen
described the same appearance* as found; by himself in the
bronchial tubes of a Flamingo.*!- References to descriptions
and figures of various singular vegetable growths on insects,
will be found in the first Part of the third volume of the
Transactions of,-the Entomological Society of London; and
those, acquainted with Edwards’ Gleanings in Natural History,
will remember his coloured representations of vegetating
caterpillars, and vegetating wasps, in the platets numbered
885 and:886, published many years since.
In spring, the Scaup Ducks depart to countries north of the
* Annals of Natural History, vof. viii. page 229. •
t Proceedings of the. Zoological Society for 1832, page 142,
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