V ?Lf*] General Notes. 323 



The Food of Wild Ducks. — In December, 1893, Mr. William Dutcher 

 brought to me the stomach contents of a Harlequin Duck {Histrionicus 

 histrionicus) shot at Montauk Point, Long Island, about the 3rd of the 

 month. An examination of the material showed what an industrious 

 collector the bird must have been, for it had in its crop remains of no less 

 than three individuals of the small mud crab of our coast, Panopei/s 

 depressa Smith, one carapace being almost entire; besides remains of 

 some other forms of Crustaceans. Of the little shell Columbella lunata 

 {Asiyris lunata of the Fish Com. Reports), there were no less than 39 

 individuals represented, besides several small Littorinas. This shell is 

 seldom more than one-sixth of an inch long, and is usually quite rare on 

 our shores. It could only have been obtained in such numbers by a sort 

 of sifting of the bottom mud of the bays by the Duck, and indicates how 

 carefully the process had been carried on in order to obtain so small an 

 article of food. 



The contents of the crop of an Eider Duck {Somateria dresseri) taken 

 by Mr. Dutcher at Montauk Point, L. I., on March 25, 1S94, contained 

 the remains of five right claws of Cancer irroratus, our common sand 

 crab, showing that he had dined sumptuously on this species on several 

 occasions. The last dinner consisted of an individual entire, a small 

 female burdened with a large quantity of eggs under the flipper, making 

 an object nearly two inches by one and three-eighths, and almost an inch 

 thick, which he must have taken into his crop at a single gulp, without 

 even disturbing a limb. 



From the stomach of a King Eider {Somateria spcctabilis) the contents 

 of which Mr. Dutcher sent, I find the objects so thoroughly comminuted 

 that but little can be identified. The hand and figure of Cancer irroratus, 

 young shells of Mytilus edulis, and a young shell of Lunatia Jieros Say, 

 which still retains the horny operculum, is all that can be recognized. 



Two gizzards of wild Ducks, the contents very much comminuted, 

 furnish, one of them, the almost entire carapace of Carcinus amcenus Linn. 

 sp. (= Cancer granulatus Say,) measuring about three-fourths of an inch 

 in diameter, the limbs all removed and the whole badly macerated. 

 There were also fragments of Caficer irroratus, our common sand crab, 

 and quite a quantity of young mussles {Mytilus edulis) none of which 

 measured more than one-half an inch in length. A second gizzard gave 

 evidence of three or four specimens of the small mud crab, Panopeus 

 depressus, with many fragments of mussle shells, but nothing else which 

 could be determined. 



There is nothing among these remains which would indicate thaL the 

 birds had been feeding at different localities within a few days of the time 

 they were shot. On the contrary all the contents of their crops and 

 gizzards would show that their food had been for some days obtained in 

 or near our own waters, or at least within the limits of our own coastal 

 fauna, and that crustaceans form a very large percentage of their food 

 during the spring months of the year. — R. P. Whitfield, American 

 Museum of Natural History, New York City. 



