132 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



and Watch Hill, quite a number frequently going over tlie land near the 

 coast, they being very erratic at such times in their movements. This flight 

 lasts for from three to seven days, according to the state of the weather. I 

 have never heard of their starting before the 7th of May, which is unusually 

 early; the customary time being from the 12th to the 15th, and the latest the 

 25th. They usually fly at a considerable altitude, say, from 200 to 300 yards, 

 fully two-thirds of them being too high to shoot. They prefer to start during 

 calm warm weather, with light southerly, southeasterly, or easterly winds ; 

 though they will occasionally fly when the wind is strong. They never fly in 

 the forenoon ; but when once they have determined to migrate they leave in 

 large flocks, some of which number from five to six hundred birds, while as 

 many as 10,000 have been estimated as passing in a single day, I have never 

 heard of, or seen, any similar flight to the eastward after this western flight 

 has taken place. A few of the other two scoters are seen with the white 

 wings during this western movement. No perceptible difference is noted in 

 their numbers from year to year, and I have never heard of a year when 

 such a flight as above described did not take place. 



On the south coast of Labrador we saw migrating flocks of scoters 

 flying eastward all through the month of June, but probably some 

 of these were not breeding birds. Flocks of nonbreeding scoters are 

 frequently seen in summer on the coast of New England and from 

 California northward. Probably the bulk of the breeding birds 

 arrive on their nesting grounds early in June, although the nesting 

 season does not begin until the middle or last of the month. 



What becomes of the vast hordes of scoters that migrate along 

 our coasts has long been a mystery to the gunners. Although they 

 are widely distributed over an extensive breeding range, they have 

 never been found breeding abundantly anywhere; probably their 

 main breeding grounds have never been discovered. On the south 

 coast of Labrador we saw no evidence of their breeding, and Audu- 

 bon found them there but sparingly. Judging from what I saw and 

 what I learned from other observers on the northeast coast of Labra- 

 dor in 1912, I am inclined to think that this species breeds more or 

 less commonly in the interior of that great peninsula. Among the 

 vast flocks of scoters, seen all along that coast in summer, numerous 

 flocks of this species were observed, but they were not nearly as 

 abundant as the other two species. These flocks were composed 

 almost entirely of adult males, which probably meant that the 

 females were incubating or tending their broods of young in inland 

 ponds. I was told that they breed far inland and at long distances 

 from any water. 



Nesting. — In the Devils Lake region, in North Dakota, Herbert 

 K. Job found white- winged scoters breeding quite commonly; on 

 June 27, 1898, he found several nests of this species on some small 

 islands in Stump Lake, containing from 1 to 14 fresh eggs and one 

 empty nest. I visited these islands with him in 1901, and on May 

 31 we did not find a single egg, although we saw a few of the birds 



