570 SOMATERIA STELLERI.—EDEMIA FUSCA. 
SOMATERIA STELLERI (Pallas). 
STELLER’S DUCK. 
[§ 5667. One—Taimyrland, June, 1843. From Dr. von 
Middendorff, through Dr. Baldamus, 1861. 
Proc. Zool. Soc. 1861, p. 400, tab. xxxix. fig. 4. 
I exhibited this egg, from the discoverer of the first nests of the species, at the 
meeting of the Zoological Society on the 10th of December, 1861, and it was 
afterwards figured in the Society's ‘ Proceedings’ (wt supra). Dy. yon Midden- 
dorff (Sib. Reise, II. ii. pp. 234, 235) states that he found the species breeding 
pretty commonly on the flat tundra of the Taimyr, and that on the 25th of 
June the nests contained from seven to nine freshly-laid eggs. Three of them 
are figured in his work (tab. xxiii. figg. 3-5)."] 
(2DEMIA FUSCA (Linneus). 
VELVET SCOTER. 
The Verver Scorer. I hoped last summer to have been able to 
take a nest of this fine bird myself, but I made arrangements to 
Jeave the mountains before midsummer, and when J returned to 
Muonioniska the only pair that were likely to bréed in this immediate 
neighbourhood had been shot. I went to the lake where I had seen. 
a brood of young ones the year before, and on its shore I found the 
fatal ambuscade, about which I subsequently heard particulars. My 
intention had been to watch there at midnight, when I am told the 
pair of Velvet Scoters rise’from the water, and after taking a round 
or two to see that the coast is clear strike off to the nest in some not 
very remote hill: the Drake having thus escorted his partner home 
returns again and settles in the part of the lake nearest the direction 
{I regretfully abstain from including in this Catalogue upwards of a score of 
eggs sent to me at various times as those of this species by Herr A. G. Nordvi, 
who fully believed in their genuineness, and obtained them from Henéerne, a group 
of islands on the Russian coast to the eastward of the Varanger Fjord. On that 
tjord this beautiful bird occurs, it is true, in considerable numbers, and just outside 
it Mr. Wolley shot four examples in 1855—two at Skalelv, 30 May, out of an 
enormous flock, ‘upwards of a thousand certainly,” and two more in Vardé 
harbour at midnight, 2-5 June ; but they, as well as all we saw, were immature, 
and it is clear that the adults, which are frequent in winter, betake themselyes 
elsewhere as spring approaches.— ED. } 
