154 Bkewster, Barrow's Golden-eye in Massachusetts. [wll 



the following winter I had "seen numbers of females and two fine 

 adult males" of this species "in the Boston markets, most of them 

 shot within state limits." 



Our markets teemed with Golden-eyes that winter and I devoted 

 a good deal of time to studying and comparing them. The game 

 dealers said that most of them came from Cape Cod, but I learned 

 afterwards that Montreal and Quebec were also rather frequent 

 sources of supply; a fact which now leads me to doubt if any of the 

 birds I saw in the markets at that time were certainly killed in 

 Massachusetts, although the female that Prof. Baird examined was 

 probably sent to me directly from Cape Cod as the wording of my 

 published statement indicates. One of the adult males — still 

 in my collection — was at first confidently believed to be a Massa- 

 chusetts bird but on its present label, written in 1880, and in a 

 catalogue entry, made that same year, the words "Cape Cod" are 

 followed by a question mark. This specimen is a typical example 

 of islandica as, no doubt, was the other male referred to in my 

 record although I have now no distinct recollection of the latter, 

 nor of what became of it. 



Of the hundreds of female Golden-eyes which I saw in the mark- 

 ets in the winter of 1871-1872 a small proportion (not exceeding 

 five per cent, if I remember rightly) differed from the others in 

 having more or less orange or bright yellow on the bill (usually on 

 the culmen just behind the nail) and an unbroken band of dull 

 black dividing the white on the wing. Thinking that the birds 

 thus marked might be Barrow's Golden-eyes I forwarded the head 

 and wings of one of them to Prof. Baird. In a letter dated at Wash- 

 ington on December 13, 1871, he writes: "As far as I can judge 

 by what you have just sent me of the remains, your bird is the 

 female Buccphela Icelandica. Our series of this is not very good, 

 but I have little if any doubt of the correctness of this identifica- 

 tion. Let me know if you wish me to return the head. If not 

 I will make a skeleton of it." A week or two later I sent him the 

 skin of the female afterwards recorded in the 'American Naturalist' 

 as having been "obtained from Cape Cod, December 7th." Con- 

 cerning it he wrote on December 29, 1871, as follows : "The Golden- 

 eyed Duck is, I think, unquestionably, the Icelandica, agreeing 

 very well with the typical specimen in our collection; although the 



