98 BULLETIN 126, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



of departure: Alaska, Kowak River, September 20, and St. Michael, 

 October 1; Alberta, Edmonton, November 6; Ontario, Ottawa, No- 

 vember 6; Nova Scotia, Sable Island, November 7: Iowa, Keokuk, 

 November 18. 



Casual records. — Accidental in Bermuda (October, 1854, and Oc- 

 tober, 1874), Cuba, Jamaica, Porto Rico, and St. Thomas. Rare on 

 migrations in Labrador (Hamilton Inlet, Natashquan, and Old Fort 

 Bay, November 27, 1880) and New Brunswick (St. John, January, 

 1880). Accidental in Aleutian, Commander, and Hawaiian Islands, 

 in the Azores, British Isles (six or more records) in France, and in 

 Japan. 



Egg dates. — Arctic America: Twenty-two records, June 5 to July 

 4; eleven records, June 16 to June 25. North and South Dakota: 

 Twenty-one records. May 25 to July 13; eleven records, June 2 to 23. 

 Alberta and Saskatchewan: Fourteen records, June 1 to 25; seven 

 records, June 13 to 17. Utah: Nine records. May 5 to June 17; five 

 records. May 10 to June 3. 



NETTION CRECCA (Linnaens). 

 ETTROPEAN TEAL. 



HABITS. 



This well-known and widely distributed Palaearctic bird has always 

 appeared on our check list as an occasional visitor or straggler with 

 its name enclosed in brackets. And such I always beUeved it to be 

 until our expedition visited the Aleutian Islands in 1911 and defi- 

 nitely established it, as a regular summer resident at least in North 

 American territory. I stated in my report on the results of this 

 expedition (1912) that: 



The European bird is supposed to occur only rarely, or as a straggler, in the Aleu- 

 tian Islands and the American bird is recorded by nearly all of the writers on Aleu- 

 tian ornithology as the common breeding teal of the region. Teal of one of these 

 species were common on all of the islands; we saw them frequently and found them 

 breeding in nearly all suitable places along the small water courses and about small 

 ponds. Doctor Wetmore found a nest containing 10 fresh eggs on June 7, near 

 Unalaska, and shot the female; unfortunately the male was not secured. We nat- 

 urally assumed that these were American green-winged teal and, therefore, made no 

 special effort to shoot males on any of the eastern islands, but I now sorely regi'et 

 that we did not collect at least a few males as the females of the two species are nearly 

 indistinguishable. Among the western and central islands we collected quite a series 

 of both sexes and every male taken proved to be an European teal; not a single male 

 green-winged teal was collected or identified anywhere. On my return to Washing- 

 ton I looked through the National Museum collection for specimens from the Aleutian 

 Islands and found only two males, No. S5615, collected by Lucien M. Turner on Atka 

 Island, June 28, 1879, and No. 192:',9], collected by Dr. J. Tlobart Egbert on Kiska 

 Island, July 14, 1904; both of these proved to be typical p]uropean teal. Therefore, 

 failing to find any positive evidence to prove that the green-winged teal breeds on 

 the Aleutian Islands, we must assume for the present, on the strength of what evi- 



