78 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 
MUSEUM SPECIMENS. 
One specimen of this species is in the collection, taken at Ot- 
tawa, by Mr. Whitcher, in 1884. One set of the eggs taken on the 
Upper Hamilton River, Labrador, by Mr. A. P. Low, May 25th: 
1894. Another set of seven from Wolfville, N.S., taken May 27th, 
1898, by Harold F. Tufts. 
XLVI]. CHAULELASMUS BownaparTe. 1838. 
135. Gadwell. Grey Duck. 
Chaulelasmus strepera (LINN.) Bonar. 1838. 
This species is rarely seen during the migration along the 
Atlantic Coast ; it is also rare in Quebec and Ontario, and MclIl- 
wraith says that the pair in his collection are the only ones he has 
heard of being taken in the latter province, though the bird has 
been shot at Ottawa by Mr. W. F. Whitcher. 
Mcllwraith in his ‘* Birds of Ontario,” page 70, seems to doubt 
my statement that they are ‘‘abundant throughout the interior.” 
He says they are nowhere abundant and no person has made that 
statement but myself. Dr. Elliott Coues, in writing of the birds 
observed by him on the International Boundary says: ‘ Abun- 
dant throughout the region, where it breeds, like nearly all the 
Anatine. Young still unfledged were observed late in August.” 
I found them abundant on the prairie in 1880, but in the wooded 
country in 1881 shot only one specimen. This is the species that 
breeds almost exclusively in the prairie region, and more than 
half the nests seen in 1895 in making a traverse from the boundary 
of Manitoba to the Rocky Mountains were of this species. This 
and the Lesser Scaup were the common ducks of the southern 
prairie. Richardson says it breeds in numbers to Lat. 68°, and 
Macfarlane says he believes it breeds as far north as Anderson 
River. 
It is generally a rare bird in Alaska and British Columbia, 
but Turner reports it common in summer in the Yukon Delta. 
BREEDING Nores.—-A pair of this species reached Deep Lake, 
Indian Head, Assa., on April 18th, 1892, and by May 6th they 
were common ; on June 24th founda nest ona small island in the 
lake, containing eight eggs. It was made of dry grass lined with 
down from the female’s own breast. In 1895, nests of this species 
