The Scottish Naturalist. 53 



manner, nor did lie believe that it nested on any Scandi- 

 navian coast. It is not included in his own list of the birds 

 he observed in Lapland, § and in the list given by him of the 

 ornithology around Vardol in East Finland, by the Rev. C. 

 Sommerfeldt, it is said to be only occasionally seen in autumn. 

 Mr. Dresser, || who also translates Sommerfeldt's list, gives simi- 

 lar testimony in his notes, relative to the scarcity of the bird in 

 that district. 



In the Fseroe Islands this duck has been procured several 

 times ; but, according to Capt. H. W. Fieldin, there is no in- 

 stance known of its having been found breeding there. % In 

 Mr. Newton's * notes on the Ornithology of Iceland, he says 

 the King Duck is rarely met with in that island, and can only 

 be regarded as a straggler from Greenland or elsewhere. 

 From Mr. Newton's t notes on the birds of Spitzbergen, 

 which he visited in 1864, this duck would seem to be 

 equally rare in that quarter, and although the species has been 

 several times got, it is certainly not of common occurrence, 

 neither does it appear to breed thereabout. He mentions two 

 or three examples of the bird that were shot in the island, a 

 number of years before his arrival, and Dr. Malmagren showed 

 him a specimen that he had succeeded in shooting some little 

 time before, in Safe Havera. The latter naturalist went to 

 Spitzbergen, with the Swedish expedition, in 1862. He states 

 that a considerable portion of the island was explored by the 

 expedition, and not a King Duck seen, and he fancies it is rare 

 everywhere in the country. Von Baer % includes this duck in 

 his article on the birds of Nova Zembla, published in 1838. 

 Mr. G. Gillett has given a more recent account of the birds of 

 that quarter in the Ibis, 1870, but, as I have not been able to 

 see this paper, I do not know whether or not it contains the 

 bird in question. The King Duck is included in Reinhardt's 

 list of the birds of Greenland, as well as in most of the prior 

 works on the natural history of the arctic regions, where the 

 species has no doubt its metropolis, and from whence the 

 ' examples that occasionally visit the coasts of Europe and 

 America evidently proceed. In North America, amongst other 



§ Spring and Summer in Lapland. || Zoologist, 1867. % Zoologist, 1872. 



* Baring-Gould, Iceland, and Zoologist. + Ibis. % Bulletin l'Acad., 



St. Petersbourgh, III. 1838. 



