268 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



A female is said, in Morris' "British Birds" (V., p. 258), 

 to have been shot on the Don near Doncaster, and I have 

 tried to do the same by that, but all the information I 

 could get was that it was procured a little above the town 

 by a Mr. Cartwell, that Mr. Reid the well-known birdstufifer 

 was guarantee for its being correctly named, and that the 

 Rev. W. E. Strickland purchased it, and there I lost the 

 clue ; but the locality assigned, so distant from the sea, is 

 against its having been a Harlequin. 



A Duck which Mr. J. Cordeaux shot at Bridlington is 

 described in the Zoologist {ss. p. 23) as a Harlequin, which 

 he thought it was at the time, but is now inclined to believe 

 that it was a young Long-tail, and hence has excluded it 

 from the " Birds of the Humber." It was not preserved. 



The author of the " Birds of Bucks and Berks " (p. 206) 

 tells us of a Harlequin killed at Maidenhead, I had my 

 suspicions about it as soon as I read the passage, and they 

 were well founded, for Mr. E. Andrews, in whose possession 

 it is, writes me that it has "a beautiful black-and-white 

 top-knot lying down the neck similar to a horse's mane." 

 This settles the question as far as the Harlequin is con- 

 cerned, and though not a very precise description, applies 

 tolerably well to the American Wood Duck, and I will 

 hazard a guess that this is what it is. 



I scarcely care to make any allusion to two, said to have 

 been taken in the island of Arran, for I know them to have 

 been so utterly unworthy of credit — one in 1844, the other 

 in 1856. 



Not one whit more trustworthy is the account quoted 

 from the Times by Mr. Simeon (Stray Notes on Fishing, 

 p. 209) of a too-confiding " Harlequin," which visited the 

 pond of a "Naturalist" and became "quite domesticated 

 there," though all will agree with his protest against its sub- 

 sequent fate. 



And here I bring to an end this bloodstained roll of 



