Duck is a most harsh and discordant _scaup_, but during flight or courtship a hoarse and grating _kurr_ is uttered. The Scaup Duck arrives at its Arctic breeding-grounds with the break-up of the ice. The bird may probably pair for life, as the sexes keep close company all the year. Even at its breeding-grounds it is a social bird, many pairs nesting in a small area, and collecting at certain spots to feed. Its breeding-grounds are on the Arctic tundras, near the rush-and-grass-fringed lakes, amidst the thickets of birches, junipers, and willows. The nest is placed under a bush, or amongst herbage on a bank, and is merely a hollow lined with dry grass and sedge and dead leaves. To this, however, the usual lining of down is added. The eggs, from six to nine in number, are greenish-gray, and of smooth texture. The female, as usual, takes sole charge of the young. The Scaup Duck inhabits, during summer, the Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and America, drawing southwards in winter almost to the tropics. TUFTED DUCK. This species, the _Anas fuligula_ of Linnæus, and the _Fuligula cristata_ of most modern ornithologists, is a fairly common winter visitor to the British coasts. It is not so exclusively a marine species as some of the other diving Ducks, being often met with on inland waters during that season. The Tufted Duck derives its name from the bushy crest or tuft of feathers growing from the top of the head, and drooping down over the back of the neck on the male. The head, neck, and crest are glossy black, shot with purple and green; the upper parts, the breast and the under tail coverts, are black; the remainder of the underparts and the alar speculum are white. In the female, the black is replaced by dark brown, and the white with brownish-gray: the white speculum remains. Many Tufted Ducks breed, and are apparently resident in our islands in certain inland districts; but the majority of the birds that occur round the coasts are migrants from the north. This Duck begins to arrive off the British coasts towards the end of October, and continues to do so into November. It remains in our area until the following spring, passing north in March and April. Its principal haunts are the more low-lying coasts, especially in the vicinity of estuaries and mud-banks. It is gregarious enough at this season, some of the flocks consisting of many thousands of birds. In its habits generally, it very closely resembles the Scaup Duck, a species whose company it often keeps. It swims in much the same low manner, dives with equally marvellous adeptness, and shows the same propensity for keeping well out to sea during the day, coming shorewards and into shallower water at night to feed. It rises from the sea in the same apparently laboured way, striking the water with its feet—the splashing thus made by a flock of birds being audible for a long distance. Its alarm note during winter