TUFTED DUCKS AND FISH.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR'
Sriz,—Pray allow me a few final lines about the tufted l duck. What I took exception to in your contributor's inter e sting article on "The Birds of Reservoirs" was his assertion that the tufted duck was "a sea species feeding on fish." I see nothing in the note of your contributor's appends f to my letter in your issue of March 1st to confirm his views or to discredit mine. The tufted duck admittedly frequents inland waters in large numbers; in fact, it is x nore common on fresh water than it is on salt water. This disp oses at once of the idea that the tufted duck is a sea duck. ,As I wrote last week, I have never seen the tufted duck at' sea, though often in shallow tidal estuaries. The real sea ducks that are habitual frequenters of the sea—I mean deep sea., not creeks and harbours—are, for instance, the long-tailed ditch, the scoter, the eiders, &c. These are essentially sea dm :ks, and are constant frequenters of the open sea, where the tut ted duck, in my experience, never ventures. As to the td ted duck being, as your contributor wrote in his article, a di ick that feeds on fish, fish being from this sentence eviden tly meant as its regular diet, I can only repeat that t he tufted duck is not a fish-feeder. Of course, .crustacea us and shellfish were not implied in the article in question, li, ut fish that swim in mid-water. As to a duck catching a sma thin eel, that is no evidence that it habitually feeds on fis Any duck would snap up a small eel which it saw wrigglim tg along at the bottom of shallow water. I once saw a waterhe with a young eel in its bill. I doubt if a tufted. duck coui
even hold a fish, though possibly an eel, in its bill if it iiatailni it, which I decline to believe it could do. The short, unser- rated, and rounded bill of the tufted duck, as is the case with its congeners, the pochard, golden-eye, &c., is not shaped, as is the saw-bill of the merganser, for catching and holding fish. I have had diving ducks, such as the tufted duck, pochard, and golden-eye, under close observation in confine- ment and swimming about among shoals of minnows and. small roach, but I never saw one of these ducks attempt to catch a fish, nor can I find any reliable authority who asserts they ever do so.—I am, Sir, &,c.,
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