SURF SCOTER. 
Anas perspicillata, TEMMINCK, 
Oidemia perspicillata, FLemMiInG. SELBY. 
Anas—A Duck, Perspicillata—........000 ? 
Tne Surf Scoter belongs to the cold north, but the Arctic 
winter is too severe even for it, and it makes its way south- 
wards at that season, and comes down so far as Florida, by 
Labrador, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Hudson’s Bay, Baffin’s 
Bay, Newfoundland, and the other intermediate districts of 
the American continent. 
In Europe it occurs on the Norwegian and Swedish coasts; 
and one, a female, was found on the Rhine. Individuals have 
also occurred in Switzerland and France. 
In Cornwall one was found near Pendennis Castle, Falmouth, 
in the winter of 1845. 
In Scotland an individual was shot in Musselburgh Bay, 
in the spring of 1852. Others also on the Frith of Forth; 
and in ‘The Naturalist, old series, volume ii, page 420, 
mention is made of the occurrence of a specimen. 
In Shetland one was seen in Rona’s Voe, by Mr. Robert 
Dunn, in June, 1847. In Orkney Surf Scoters appear in 
small flocks in the sounds during winter. 
In Ireland a specimen was obtained near Belfast. 
The Surf Scoter in summer resorts to the mouths of rivers, 
and fresh-water lakes in the neighbourhood of the sea, but 
this only for the purpose of rearing its young, for at other 
times, as its name conveys, it is a bird of the sea, and delights 
to float among the heaviest breakers of the ‘rolling deep,’ 
over which it makes its way with buoyant ease. 
These birds arrive m October, and remain till the end of 
March. 
