EXTERMINA TION 



fo^ 



and the coast of Labrador, migrating in winter to the shores of Nova 

 Scotia, New Brunswick, New England, and perhaps further south- 

 ward. There is no proof, according to the best-informed American 

 ornithologists, of a single example being met with for many years past 

 in any of the markets of the United States, where formerly it was 

 not at all uncommon at the proper season, and the last known to 

 the present writer to have lived was killed by Col. Wedderburn in 

 Halifax harbour in the autumn of 1852.^/^ This bird, the Anas 

 labradoria of the older ornithologists, was nearly allied to the Eider- 

 Duck, and like that species used to breed on rocky islets, where it 



Pied Ddck, Somateria labradoria, Male and Female. 



^ It is needless to observe that no one at that time had any notion of its 

 approacliing extinction. The skin of this example is in Canon Tristram's collec- 

 tion, its sternum, which was figured by Rowley (Orn. Miscell. pp. 205-223), is in 

 the Cambridge Museum. Mr. Dutcher [Auk, 1891, pp. 208, 211) reports three 

 specimens supposed to have been obtained between 1857 and 1861 ; but the in- 

 formation of the former owner of two of them points to an earlier time, and that 

 respecting the third is somewhat vague. Still more uncertain are the rumours, 

 though properly printed by him (pp. 214, 215), of exami)les said to have been 

 obtained in 1871 and 1878, but since lost. If they could be recovered, a mistake 

 would probably be found to have been made. Modern American authors profess 

 their inability to explain the extu'pation of this species. I liave little doubt that 

 the cause mentioned in the text and published by me in 1875 is the true one. 

 The shooting down of nesting-birds, witnessed by Audubon Avhen he was among 

 the islands of the Labrador coast, and year by year carried on with increasing 

 intensity, could produce uo other result. 



