60 NOKTH AMEEICAN DUCKS, GEESE, AND SWANS. 



seems to be no record of the discovery of the nest in this region. 

 Nonbreeding birds are known to occur far south of the breeding- 

 grounds. The species is unknown from the whole vast interior of 

 North America, betw^een Hudson Bay on the east and the Yukon Val- 

 ley on the west, and south ahiiost to the United States boundary; it 

 ranges north to Ungava Ba}", Hudson Strait, and Fort Churchill, 

 Hudson Bay, and apparentl}^ does not breed south of Newfoundland, 

 nor in Labrador south of aliout latitude 52°; so that it follows by 

 exclusion that the multitudes of these ducks that winter from the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence south along the Atlantic coast must breed in northern 

 Ungava. 



The American scoter is much more al)undant on the Pacitic coast, 

 and breeds from the Aleutians and Near Island north to Kotzebue 

 Sound and northeastern Asia. 



Wiyiter range. — The American scoter remains in winter around New- 

 foundland, except when it is driven away by the drift ice; thence 

 south it is not uncommon to Long Island Sound and the coast of New 

 Jersey, less common to South Carolina, rare or accidental in Florida; it 

 is not rare on the Great Lakes during the winter, and has been observed 

 at various places inland in the neighbqring States; rare or accidental 

 at St. Louis, Mo.; Lake Catherine, Louisiana; Lincoln, Nebr. ; Fort 

 Collins, Colo. ; and Cheyenne, Wj^o. The Pacific birds winter from 

 the Aleutian Islands to the Santa Barbara Islands, California, and also 

 to Japan on the Asiatic side. 



Spring migration. — Arrivals from the south appear in the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence from March 25 to the first week in April, and the breed- 

 ing grounds are reached soon after the middle of May. Most of the 

 birds disappear from the coast of Massachusetts the last week of 

 April, but belated individuals have been seen at Cobb Island, Vir- 

 ginia, May 19, 1891; Shelter Island, N. Y., June 5, 1893; and Woods 

 Hole, Mass., June 10, 1891. On the Pacific side the first arrivals were 

 noted at St. Michael, Alaska, May 16, and in Kotzebue Sound June 3. 

 A few linger on the Pacific coast of the United States until early May. 



Fall migration. — An American scoter was noted at Black River, 

 Lewis County, N. Y., September 27, 1877; one at Ottawa, Ontario, 

 September 21, 1887, and one at Woods Hole, Mass., September 9, 

 1891, but the regular flight does not occur until earl}^ October, and 

 at about the same time the first migrants are seen on the coast of 

 Puget Sound. The last ones leave St. Michael, Alaska, from the 10th 

 to 15th of October. 



Oidemia fusca (Linn.). Velvet Scoter. 



This is an Asiatic and European species, an individual of which was 

 taken in May, 1878, near Godthaab, on the western coast of Greenland. 



