68 NOTES ON THE 



light reddish-brown; under wing coverts and axillars, brownish- 

 chocolate; no white on the wing; iris, white. 



Length, 21; wing, 9; 'tail, 8; tarsus, 1.50; commissure, 1.60. 



Habitat, Northern Hemisphere. 



HISTRIONICUS HISTRIONICUS (L.). (155.) 

 HARLEQUIN DUCK. 



This peculiarly marked duck is found on Lake Superior in 

 the winter, and has been obtained once in Grant county, whence 

 it was brought here by Mr. Norris on his way to New York 

 where he purposed to have it mounted for his private collec- 

 tion. On two other occasions a specimen found its way into 

 the hands of a taxidermist in St. Paul, and those of another 

 residing in Minneapolis temporarily. These could be only 

 stragglers in migration, 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Head and neck all around, dark blue; jugulum, sides of 

 breast, and upper parts, lighter blue, becoming bluish-black 

 again on the tail coverts; the blue of the breast passes insensi- 

 bly into dark bluish-brown bebind; a broad stripe along the 

 top of the head from the bill to the nape, and the tail feathers, 

 black; a white patch along the entire side of the base of the 

 bill anterior to the eye, and passing upwards and backwards so 

 as to border the black of the crown, but replaced from above 

 the eye to the nape by chestnut; a round spot on the side of 

 the occiput; an elongated one on the side of the neck; a collar 

 around the lower part of the neck, interrupted before and 

 behind, and margined behind by dark blue; a transversely 

 elongated patch on each side of the breast, similarly margined; 

 a round spot on the middle wing coverts, a transverse patch on 

 the end of the greater coverts, the scapulars in part, a broad 

 streak on the outer web of the tertials, and a spot on each side, 

 the rest of the tail, white; sides of body behind, chestnut- 

 brown; secondaries with a metallic speculum of purplish or 

 violet-blue; inside of wing and axillars, dark brown; iris, red- 

 dish-brown. 



Length, 17. EO; wing, 7.70; tarsus, 1.50; commissure, 1.55. 



Habitat, northern North America. 



SOMATERIA SPECTABILIS (L ). (162.) 

 KING EIDER. 



A pair of these ducks was obtained in Grant county by Mr. 

 Emery Armstrong, of Herman, in October, 1885. After con- 

 siderable correspondence, I learned that one of them was sent 

 to Philadelphia, and the other to some friend in Michigan. 



1 



