LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL 131 



and the still rarer and elegant eider duck ; and travelling high overhead 

 long chains of whooper swans send forth their loud and resonant trumpet 

 calls. The wide surface of the sea presents a scene of aquatic bird life 

 equally rich and varied. Velvet and common scoters assemble in dense 

 crowds near the ice, while large flocks of scaups, all keeping close together, 

 dive and swim about among the rocks off the eastern and western sides of the 

 island. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Breeding range. — Northern Europe and Asia, from Norway east- 

 ward to northeastern Siberia (Marcova and Gichiga) and on Nova 

 Zembla. 



Winter range. — Temperate Europe and Asia, south to Spain, 

 Morocco, Egypt, northern Persia, and Turkestan. 



Casual records. — Accidental in the Faroe Islands and Greenland. 



Egg dates. — Lapland : Five records, May 25 to July 22. Norway 

 and Sweden : Two records, June 18 and July 4. 



MELANITTA DEGLANDI (Bonaparte) 

 WHITE-WINGED SCOTER 



HABITS 



Spring. — The northward movement of scoters on the New Eng- 

 land coast begins early in March, but the main flight comes along 

 during the first half of May and continues in lessening numbers all 

 through that month. It has long been known to gunners that a 

 local westward flight of white-winged scoters takes place on the 

 south coast of New England in May, consisting wholly of fully 

 plumaged adult birds, recognized by the gunners as "May white 

 wings." This undoubtedly indicates an overland migration route 

 to their breeding grounds in the Canadian interior. I have seen 

 several thousand of these birds gathered in large flocks in the waters 

 about Seconnet Point, Rhode Island, early in May, preparing for 

 this flight. 



Mr. George H. Mackay (1891) refers to this flight as follows: 



This movement is a peculiar one, inasmuch as it takes place about the 

 middle of Maj% aiid after the greater portion of the migration of this group 

 has passed by, as also ignoring the coast route accepted by all the rest. My 

 attention was first directed to this unusual movement during the spring of 

 1870, while shooting at West Island, off Seconnet Point, Rhode Island, and it 

 has occurred regularly every year since that date, as was undoubtedly the 

 case earlier. These birds are apparently all adults and do not seem to heed 

 the regular migration to the eastward of many of their own kind, which has 

 no effect in hastening their own departure for the north. When the time 

 arrives for them to set out on their migration, and the meteorological condi- 

 tions are favorable — for it must be clear at the westward — they always start 

 late in the afternoon, from 3 to 5 o'clock, and continue the flight during the 

 night, passing by Marthas Vineyard, Woods Hole, Seconnet Point, Point Judith, 



