This species exhibits a degree of cunning which surpasses that of many other Ducks, and yet at times it appears quite careless. When I have been walking, without any object in view, along the banks of the Ohio, between Shippingport and Louisville, I have often seen the Golden-eyes, fishing almost beneath me, when, although I had a gun, they would suffer me to approach within an hundred paces. But at other times, if I crawled or hid myself in any way while advancing towards them, with a wish to fire at them, they would, as if perfectly aware of my intentions, keep at a distance of fully two hundred yards. On the former occasion they would follow their avocations quite unconcernedly: while on the latter, one of the flock would remain above as if to give intimation of the least appearance of danger. If, in the first instance, I fired my gun at them, they would all dive with the celerity of lightning, but on emerging, would shake their wings as if in defiance. But if far away on the stream, when I fired at them, instead of diving, they would all at once stretch their necks, bend their bodies over the water, and paddle off with their broad webbed feet, until the air would resound with the smart whistling of their wings, and away they would speed, quite out of sight, up the river. In this part of the country, they are generally known by the name of “Whistlers.” I have observed that birds of this species rarely go to the shores to rest until late in the evening, and even then they retire to secluded rocks, slightly elevated above the surface, or to the margins of sand-bars, well protected by surrounding waters. In either case, it is extremely difficult for a man to get near them; but it is different with the sly Racoon, which I have on several occasions surprised in the dawn, feeding on one which it had caught under night. Yet, on some of the bays of our sea-coasts, the Whistlers are easily enticed to alight by the coarsest representations of their figures in wooden floats, and are shot while they pass and repass over the place to assure themselves that what they see is actually a bird of their own kind. This mode is successfully followed in the Bay and Harbour of Boston in Massachusetts, as well as farther to the eastward. The Golden-eye is rarely if ever seen in the company of any other species than those which are, like itself, expert divers; such, for example, as the Mergansers, or the Buffel-headed Duck: and it is very rare to see all the individuals of a flock immersed at once. Sometimes, when suddenly surprised, they immediately dive, and do not rise again until quite out of gun-shot. When wounded, it is next to impossible to catch them; for their power of remaining under water is most surprising, and the sooner one gives up the chase the better.