62 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



cannot cry out ; as soon as he hath him in his Canow he wrings off his head, 

 and making his Canow fast, he clambreth to the top of the Rock, where walking 

 softly he takes them up as he pleaseth, still wringing off their heads ; when he 

 hath slain as many as his Canow can carry, he gives a shout which awakens the 

 surviving Cormorants, who are gone in an instant." ! 



The Pied or Labrador Duck (Camptolaimus labradorius), which has been seen 

 in the flesh by men now living, has, like the Great Auk, become extinct. Elliot, 2 

 who saw a considerable number of these birds at various times between 1 860 

 and 1870 in the markets of New York, believes that all the alleged causes for 

 the disappearance of this Duck are unsatisfactory, while Newton 3 has no doubt 

 that the shooting down of nesting birds witnessed by Audubon on the rocky 

 islands off the Labrador coast, and carried on with increasing intensity year by 

 year, could produce no other result. Two males were killed in November, 1844, 

 by Nicholas Pike at the mouth of the Ipswich River. One of these birds is now 

 in the collection of the Long Island Historical Society of Brooklyn, N. Y. 4 A 

 female was shot at Swampscott in September, 1862, by Mr. Arthur Thomas. 5 

 C. J. Maynard 6 says that he thinks he saw one of these birds in Plum Island 

 River in the winter of about 1872. In the fall of 1874, J. Wallace killed a 

 Labrador Duck at Long Island, and the latest record of its capture anywhere 

 was by Gregg" at Elmira, N. Y., on December 12th, 1878. 



Snow Geese (Chen hyperborea and C. h. nivalis), accidental at the present day, 

 were probably common in the early times. Thus Wood 8 writes : "The second 

 kind is a white Goose, almost as big as an Etiglish tame Goose, these come in 

 great flockes about Michelmasse [September 29th], sometimes there will be two 

 or three thousand in a flocke, these continue six weekes, and so flye to the 

 southward, returning in March, and staying six weekes more, returning againe 

 to the Northward ; the price of one of these is eight pence." Morton, 9 in 1637, 

 says : " There are Geese of three sorts, vize : brant Geese which are pide, and 



1 In this connection the following written over two hundred years later is of interest : " On dark 

 nights, when the Cormorants are asleep, the Fuegian hunter, hanging by a thong of seal-skin, 

 glides along the cliffs, holding on to jutting points of rock ; when near a bird he seizes it with both 

 hands and crushes its head between his teeth, without giving it time to utter a cry or make a move- 

 ment. He then passes on to another, and so continues until some noise puts the Cormorant to 

 flight." J. Deniker: The Races of Man, 1901. 



2 D. G. Elliot : The Wild Fowl of the United States and British Possessions, p. 172, 1898. 



3 Alfred Newton : Dictionary of Birds, article " Extermination," 1893-96. 



4 Wm. Uutcher: Auk, vol. 8, p. 205, 1891. 

 6 Wm. Dutcher: Auk, vol. n, p. 7, 1894. 



6 C. J. Maynard: Birds of Eastern North America, p. 456, 1881. 

 ' W. H. Gregg: Amer. Nat., vol. 13, p. 128, 1879. 



8 Wm. Wood: New England's Prospect, 1634 ; p. 34 of 1865 reprint. 



9 Thomas Morton : New English Canaan, 1637 ; p. 189 of 1883 reprint. 



