Scoter

Clear of Pumpkin Nob we caught it! The first sou'wester was driving steep seas across Hussey Sound, clipping their tips into scintilating sun jewels.

Under double reefs the little sloop stood up to her work and the ebb tide hurried us seaward with a long and short leg. Presently we were up with the Overset. Rounding the point, sheets were eased and we slid off eastward into thousands of Coots. There they were! — lifting easily on the transparent emerald face of a comber or lost in the flying spindrift. Some waited until the sloop was nearly on top and then ducked — casually. Few took to the air. In our wake they gathered in little bunches, gutterally discussing the strange bird which went slashing thru their ranks.

Under the lee of the islands there was plenty of quiet water but the SCOTERS preferred the tumultuous windward seas. A Scoter seems literally of India rubber — muscles hard and their entire frame knit and powerful to withstand buffetings and pressure of old Neptune. They dive to 100 feet and wrench the food loose with their strong jaws.

Digestion is extraordinary. Clams and mussels are swallowed whole. The gravel-toothed gizzard punches holes in the shells and nutriment extracted and bivalves have been taken from their stomachs still clenched! — Even some of my old lumberjack experts on beans, flapjacks and bacon might well envy such assimilating capacity.