EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 49 



China and Japan. On the American continent it breeds in Alaska 

 and British North America, and winters in the Southern States, 

 Mexico and Cuba. 



The most remarkable fact in the history of the Golden-eye is 

 its habit of occasionally perching on the bare branch of some 

 forest tree, and of discovering a hole in the trunk, sometimes 

 quite a small one, but leading to a hollow inside, where it deposits 

 eggs on the rotten chips of wood without any nest, like a Wood- 

 pecker. These breeding-places are sometimes a considerable 

 distance from the ground. Where a hollow tree-trunk cannot be 

 found a hollow branch is often selected, and some parts of 

 Germany are far too well farmed to admit of the existence of 

 hollow trees. The Golden-eye, according to Naumann, breeds on 

 the tops of pollard willows or even amongst the reeds on the 

 ground. The down, like that of the Smew or the Sheldrakes, and 

 other Ducks which breed in hollow trees or holes in the ground 

 where it cannot be seen, is much paler than that of Ducks gene- 

 rally, being a delicate pale lavender-grey with very obscure paler 

 centres. The eggs vary from ten to nineteen, but thirteen is a 

 not unusual number. They are bright greyish-green, smooth in 

 texture and with considerable gloss. They vary in length from 

 24 to 21 inches, and in breadth from 1'75 to 1*55 inch. Excep- 

 tionally grey eggs of the Golden-eye can scarcely be distinguished 

 from exceptionally green eggs of the Pochard ; but the differ- 

 ence in the colour of the down makes confusion between them 

 impossible. 



THE HAKLEQUIN DUCK. 



(Fuligula histrionica.)* 

 Plate 15, Fig. 1. 

 Several specimens of the Harlequin Duck have been obtained 

 in Britain. It is almost a circumpolar species, and is a resident 

 in Iceland, and a summer visitor to Greenland south of the Arctic 

 Circle ; thence its breeding-range extends westward between lat. 

 45° and 65° across North America. In Eastern Siberia its breeding- 

 range extends from the Stanovoi Mountains, through the Valley 

 of the Amoor as far west as Lake Baikal. The only evidence of 



* Cosmonetta histrionica — Saunders, Manual, p. 445; Sharpe, Handb., III., p. 31. 

 D 



