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VELVET SCOTER. 
VELVET DUCK. 
Anas fusca, PENNANT. MOoNTAGU. 
Oidemia fusca, Fieminc. SELBY. 
Anas—A Duck. Fusca—A dark. colour—brown. 
THE native regions of this Duck are the northern parts 
of Europe, Asia, and America. It is numerous in Russia and 
Norway, and occurs also in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Lapland, 
Sweden, Denmark, Holstein, Holland, Pomerania, Germany, 
France, Italy, and Switzerland. Thus again in Siberia and 
Kamtschatka; as likewise in Labrador, Hudson’s Bay and the 
countries about it, stretching sometimes as far south as 
Georgia. 
They breed in ‘central Norway on the lakes and ponds in 
the vicinity of the sea; on the islands and between the rocks 
of the bays of Bothnia and Finland; and are particularly 
plentiful on the Lake Ladoga. The male and female appear 
in pairs long before the breeding-season, and are apparently 
inseparable.’ 
In Yorkshire, one was shot at Bentley, near Doncaster, by 
the gamekeeper of Sir W. B. Cooke, Bart.; another on the 
coast in the winter of 1851, as Mr. William Felkin, Junior, 
of Carrington, near Nottingham, has informed me; it is 
obtained occasionally on the moors near Huddersfield, at times 
also, but seldom, near Burlington. In Oxfordshire, specimens 
have been seen near Oxford in severe winters. In Berkshire, 
one near Wargrave, in January, 1795. In Cornwall, the 
species has occurred near Falmouth, on the River Truro, and 
the Carrack road. One, a female, at Helford, December 4th., 
