THE AUK: 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 

 ORNITHOLOGY. 



Vol. XXXI. July, 1914. No. 3 



THE MOULTS AND PLUMAGES OF THE SCOTERS,— 

 GENUS OIDEMIA. 



BY JONATHAN DWIGHT, JR., M. D. 



Plates XXIV~XXX. 



The Scoters are a group of sea-ducks best known when adult by 

 their black plumage and bright colored, bulging bills. They are 

 widely distributed during the breeding season in the arctic and 

 sub-arctic portions of the Northern Hemisphere and move south- 

 ward in the winter to temperate latitudes where they are found in 

 great numbers. Three species, nigrajusca, and carho, are peculiar -; 

 to the Old World, and three, americana, perspicillata and deglandi 

 are found in the New, where along our Atlantic coast they are 

 popularly known to many of our gunners as "Coots." 



Historically considered the Scoters are of respectable antiquity, 

 for the very early writers on birds have had something to say about 

 them. In 1555, Belon (L'Hist. Nat. Oyseaux) seems to refer to a 

 sea-duck, and in 1560, Gesner (Icon. Animal., p. 76) mentions 

 " Ajias fera fusca" but at best fourteenth century descriptions are 

 too vague and imperfect to make much out of them. In 1634, 

 however, Aldrovand^(Ornith., iii, p. 234) not only describes the ] I 

 common European species fusca under the title " De anate nigra, 

 rostro nigro, rubro & luteo" but also inserts a strange-looking 

 wood-cut of the duck with the white wing band and e^e-crescent 



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