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SEA FOWL IN NOVA SCOTIA—GILPIN. 145 
nual migration along our coasts, yet are never seen performing 
it, or are a scene in the landscape. We find them feeding in our 
inland lakes or dallying about our salt-tide marshes, and we 
scarcely know if they are successive flights or the same flocks. 
We have only what may be called stragglers from the eastern 
wing of the great migration, which doubtless makes the great 
freshwater streams and lakes their turnpikes further inland, and 
our rarer species must be the involuntary stragglers that are 
pressed towards the sea coast by westerly gales. The third 
group of migratory sea fowl are purely pelagic and procure their 
living by diving. They never affect the freshwaters or are seen 
inland. They include the heralds, the scoters, the eiders, the 
rather scarce harlequin, and the almost extinet Labrador pied 
duck. Of this last species Mr. Downs secured about thirty years 
ago the three or four last specimens known in the Province. 
One of them is in the collection of Col. Drummond in Scotland ; 
Mr. Boardman has one, and the third must be the specimen ob- 
tained by. Mr. Brewster, of Cambridge, Mass., lately, and marked 
from Nova Scotia. Wilson, in 1818, speaks of examining many 
specimens in the market of Philadelphia, and in 1830 it was well 
known by the gunners of Newport, R. I., who called it the 
skunk duck, from its black and white colors. It is probable this 
species is becoming extinct, as the causes of its scarcity appear 
now permanent. Of the king duck, (S. spectabilis), I have only 
noted three specimens, in market, Halifax, Dec. 11, 1871, one of 
which is now in the collection of Mr. Boardman, St. Stephen’s, 
and though a male in full nuptial plumage, has the peculiarity 
of having no frontal plates to the bill. This species is so emi- 
nently pelagic in our latitudes as never to seek our shores un- 
less driven in by gales of wind. The common eider or sea duck, 
as it is here called, is plenty, especially in the form of the female 
and immature birds. J note that Mr. Egan informed me he onee 
watched a pair nesting near Halifax, N.S., but this is the only 
instance that has come beneath my notice. With the exception 
of the harlequin, which are rare, the old wives, the three species 
of scoters, and the common eider ducks, make up our true mi- 
gratory sea fowl. 
