SURF-SCOTER. 607 



FULIGULA PERSPICILLATA. 

 SURF-SCOTEH. 



(Plate 65.) 



Anas nigra major freti liiidsouis, Briss. Orn. \i. p. 425 (1760). 



Anas perspicillata, Lin7i. Si/st. Nat. i. p. 201 (1766) ; et auctorum plurimorum — 



GmeJin, Latham, Teinmuick, {Bonaparte), {Dresser), {Saunders), Sec. 

 Anas latirostris, Bodd. Tail. PI. Enl. p. 58 (1783). 

 Melanitta perspicillata {Linn.), Buie, Isis, 1822, p. 564. 



Platypus perspicillata {Linn.), Brehm, Lehrb. Naturg. exir. Vog. ii. p. 823 (1824). 

 Oidemia perspicillata {Linn.), Steph. Shawns Gen. Zool. xii. pt. ii. p. 219 (1824). 

 Macroramphus perspicillata {Linn.), Less. Man. d'Orn. ii. p. 414 (1828). 

 Fuligula (Oidemia) perspicillata {Linn.), Bonap. Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist. N. York, ii. 



p. 389 (1826). 

 Pelionetta perspicillata {Linn.), Kaup, Natiirl. Si/st. p. 107 (1829). 

 Fuligula perspicillata {Lin^i.), And. Orn. Biogr. iv. p. 161, pi. 317 (1838). 

 Pelionetta trowbridgii, Baird, B. N. Amer. p. 806 (1858). 



ffidemia perspicillata, var. trowbridgii {Baird), Cones, Jieg N.-Amer. B. p. 295 (1872). 

 Q3demia perspicillata trowbridgii {Baird), Coues, Check-List, 2ud ed. no. 740 (1882). 



The Surf-Scoter is a rare straggler to the British Islands in winter^ but 

 has been obtained as far south as the Scilly Isles. An example of this bird 

 was sent in the flesh to Mr. Bartlett about half a century ago (Blyth^ 

 ' Naturalist/ iii. p. 420), which may possibly have been shot in this country; 

 but the first reliable record of this bird in our islands appears to be that 

 made by Thompson, who states that a male was shot at Ballyholme, Belfast 

 Bay, on the 9th of September 1846, whilst its companion Avas several times 

 seen (B. of Ireland, iii. p. 118). Dunn saw a bird of this species in June 

 1847 in Rona's Voe, North Shetland ('Zoologist,' 1848, p. 2067); a third 

 was obtained in Musselburgh Bay, in the Firth of Forth, in the spring of 



1852 (Martin, 'Naturalist,' 1853, p. 83); Yarrell records a fourth captured 

 near Weymouth, in Dorset, in the winter of 1851 (Hist. Brit. B. 3rd ed. 

 iii. p. 325); and another, a female, Avas shot in the same locality in December 



1853 (Thompson, 'Zoologist/ 1854, p. 4255). One was killed at Crofton, 

 in Cumberland, in August J 856 (Eyton, Hist. Rar. Brit. B. p. 81); and 

 one was shot on the rocks at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough, on the 

 25th of October 1860, by Mr. A. S. Bell, another bird, probably of the 

 same species, being in its company ('Zoologist/ 1860, p. 7274). Rodd 

 records a specimen shot by a boy in Scilly in September 1865 ('Zoologist,' 

 1865, p. 9794). Gray mentions two examples of this bird — one shot 



