HARLEQUIN UUCK. 453 



of the rarest of stragglers to our coasts. Its occurrence 

 in the British Islands was first recorded by James Sowerby, 

 who gave coloured illustrations of an adult male and a 

 female in his 'British Miscellany,' pi. 6, p. 11 (1806), 

 stating that the specimens had been presented to him by his 

 " kind friend Lord Seaforth, who procured them from Scot- 

 land." Montagu subsequently described these two birds in 

 his * Ornithological Dictionary ' (1813). Sowerby adds, 

 "Mr. Simmons gave me a young female which he shot in 

 one of the Orkneys." Whether the two former birds were 

 really killed in Scotland ; or whether the latter was really a 

 female Harlequin and not a young Long-tailed Duck, it is 

 now impossible to say ; but it may be briefly remarked, that 

 all the young or female ' Harlequins ' which have from time 

 to time been recorded, have been proved, where proof was 

 possible, to be Long-tailed Ducks, Those desirous of details 

 may consult Prof. Newton's remarks in ' The Ibis,' 1859, 

 pp. 162-166, and also an exhaustive criticism by Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney, jun., in his * Rambles of a Naturalist,' pp. 263—269. 

 Even examples which have been recorded as males in adult 

 plumage, have proved to be examples of the American Wood 

 Duck or some other species. This was undoubtedly the case 

 with those which Mr. J. J. Briggs described as having bred, 

 in captivity, at Melbourne in Derbyshire : a statement unfor- 

 tunately accepted and published in the 3rd Edition by the 

 Author, whose acquaintance with the Harlequin Duck was 

 limited. Major W. Boss King states that he shot a male 

 in good plumage in 1858, at Buchan in Aberdeenshire, after 

 several days' storm from the north-east ; but, although 

 stuflied at the time, the bird was subsequently thrown away. 

 The only authentic example known to the Editor is a male 

 in the collection of Mr. J. Whitaker, of Rainworth, which 

 was rescued by ^Ir. Roberts, of Scarborough, from some 

 fishermen who had found it dead on the shore at Filey, and 

 were throwing it into the water for a dog to retrieve, in the 

 autumn of 1862. 



There are no authenticated instances of the occurrence of 

 the Harlequin Duck on any part of the Continent ; but there 



