70 NOTES ON THE 



sons of migration and occasional winters. The absence of white 

 in contrast with the uniform black, identifies the species very 

 readily. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Tail of sixteen feathers; bill much swollen on the basal 

 third; basal portion of culmen, convex, and rapidly descend- 

 ing; terminal portion of bill much depressed; anterior extrem- 

 ity of nostrils half way from the lateral or upper feathers at 

 the base of the bill to the tip; swelling at base of bill divided 

 by a furrow along the median line; frontal feathers extending 

 slightly forward in an obtuse point; color entirely black all 

 over, without any white ; bill black along the edges and tip, the 

 swollen basal portion red to beyond the nostrils. 



Length, 23.80; wing, 9.20; tarsus, 1.80; commissure, 2.14. 



Habitat, coasts and larger lakes of North America. 



OIDEMIA DEGLANDI Bonaparte. (165.) 

 WHITE-WINGED SCOTER. 



The White-winged Scoters are not often seen before the third 

 w^eek in October or even a little later than that, and very 

 rarely in any considerable numbers. A few of them get into 

 the market at such times, but are so unsaleable that they are 

 liable to remain on hand some time. Occasionally they are 

 purchased and mounted by the taxidermists. Later they are 

 only found in open shallow streams where the rapidity of the 

 current prevents the formation of ice, and in spring-holes near 

 large water courses. More commonly but a pair is found in 

 one locality during the winter. Their food consists of molluscs, 

 crustaceans and fish, the latter predominating. In open 

 w^inters they leave the State by the 15th of March. I have no 

 record of their presence later than the 25th of that month. 

 Mr. H. W. Howling, of East Minneapolis, has a pair of these 

 Ducks mounted in his possession which he has kindly per- 

 mitted me to examine very recently. The male had the ' 'white 

 elongated patch around and a little behind the eye" excessively 

 developed. It reached nearly to the top of the head. The 

 female had besides the ' 'whitish patch on the side of the head 

 behind the eye," another rather obsolete one in front and be- 

 low the eye. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Bill very broad, wider towards the tip than at the base; 

 feathers extending far along the side of the bill, and on the 

 forehead for nearly half the commissure, running in an obtuse 

 point about as far forward as the lower corner of the outline of 



