156 BULLETIN 126, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Greenland (Godthaab and "northern"), and Labrador (Hopedale, 

 Davis Inlet, etc.). Recorded from Laysan Island. 



Egg dates. — Alaska and Arctic America: Fifty-five records, May 

 23, to July 16; twenty-eight records, June 10 to 24. California, 

 Colorado, and Utah: Twenty-two records, April 30 to June 29; 

 eleven records, May 15 to 30. Manitoba and Saskatchewan: Twenty 

 records. May 16 to July 3 : ten records, June 4 to 14. North Dakota : 

 Twenty-three records, May 11 to June 27; twelve records. May 23 to 

 June 10. 



POECILONETTA BAHAMENSIS (Linnaeus). 

 BAHAMA PINTAIL. 



HABITS. 



This beautiful duck has been recorded only once in North America. 

 Mr. W. Sprague Brooks (1913) reported the capture of a specimen by 

 Mr. Gardner Perry at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in March, 1912. Mr. 

 Perry generously presented the specimen to the Museum of Compar- 

 ative Zoology at Cambridge. 



The bird was in company witli a small flock of green-winged teal, and the wind at 

 the time was southeast. It seems a strange fact that this bird has not been recorded 

 from Florida before, a region that has so long received the attentions of sportsmen 

 and naturalists. 



The Bahama pintail, or Bahama duck, as it is also called, has long 

 been known as a wide ranging species, from the Bahama Islands to 

 southern South America. Mr. W. H. Hudson (1920) refers to it in 

 his Argentine Ornithology under the name of "white-faced pintail"; 

 he seems to object to the use of the name "Bahama pintail." He 

 says that it is one of the commonest ducks in Brazil; he also says: 



The brown pintail is our most abundant species in Argentina, and I have noticed 

 in flocks of great size, sometimes of many thousands, of that duck, that a single white- 

 faced duck in the flock could be detected at a long distance by means of that same 

 snowy whiteness of the face. 



IMr. Outram Bangs (1918) has recently shown that there are two 

 recognizable subspecies, of which he says: 



Specimens from the Guianas and the lower Amazon are quite like West Indian ex- 

 amples, and are true PoeciloneUa bahamensis (Linn.). Those from southern South 

 America — southern Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, etc. — though little different in 

 color, are much larger, and represent a recognizable subspecies for which there are 

 several names. I have seen no intergrades, but doubtless these occur in middle 

 Brazil or Bolivia. 



Very little seems to have been published on the habits of the 

 Bahama pintail and I have been able to learn only a few meager 

 facts about it. Dr. Glover M. Allen (1905) says of its haunts in the 

 Bahama Islands: 



On the south side of Great Abaco, stretching for many miles east and west, is a 

 tidewater region locally known as "the Marls." Long reaches of shallow water 



