326 DUCK GROUP 



mistaken for harlequin-ducks. To Ireland the species is an irregular 

 winter-visitor in small numbers. 



In their Arctic summer home, which some individuals appear never 

 to forsake, long -tailed ducks frequent tarns and marshy lakes, where 

 they remain till the young, which are hatched about the latter end 

 of June, are fairly strong on the wing, when the whole assemblage 

 betakes itself to sheltered estuaries and inlets on the coast. Like all 

 the members of this group, these ducks are expert in diving ; but they 

 associate in smaller flocks than is the case with many other species. 

 During the breeding-season the drake utters a peculiar musical note, 

 of which the Shetland name calloo is supposed to be an imitation. 

 It will be unnecessary to describe the nest and eggs. 



Although something approaching a score of alleged instances of 

 the occurrence in the British Islands of the beautiful harlequin-duck 

 {Histt'ionicus torqiiatus) of the Arctic regions of both hemispheres 

 have been recorded, it appears probable that the great majority of 

 these are based on misidentifications ; immature examples of the long- 

 tailed duck being, as already mentioned, not unfrequently mistaken for 

 the present species. Consequently, the harlequin-duck has no claim 

 to a definite place in the British list ; and our notice will therefore be 

 but brief. 



Evidently closely allied to the long-tailed duck, the present species 

 (which is sometimes known as Cosmonctta hisU-ionica or as Histriotiicus 

 histrionicus) differs so remarkably in its type of colouring, as well as 

 in certain other features, that it is regarded as the solitary representative 

 of a special genus. In addition to its peculiar and distinctive type of 

 colouring (widely different in the two sexes, but showing a wing-bar in 

 neither), the harlequin-duck is characterised by the absence of elongation 

 of the two middle tail-feathers and scapulars of the drake, and likewise 

 by its conical and sharply tapering beak. At least three specimens 

 of the species are undoubtedly British, namely, one obtained near 

 Scarborough in the autumn of 1862, and a couple killed on the Fame 

 Islands, off the Northumberland coast, in the winter of 1886. 



Eider-Duck ^\\^ group of soft-plumaged and downy Arctic ducks 



(Somateria typified by the eider or dunter duck is characterised 



mollissima) ^^ *^^ circumstance that the feathered area on the 



sides of the face is continued forwards on the beak 



to a point below the line of the hind margin of the nostrils, in place 



of stopping considerably behind this. In the present and following 



species the beak is rather narrow and pointed, the inner secondary quills 



