1S91.] DuTCiiER 071 the Labrador Duck. 211 



beaiinj4 a label on which is inscribed simply 'Nova Scotia, 1857.' 

 I bought the bird in April, 1878, of Mr. Bernard A. Hoopes, of 

 Piiiladelphia, Pa., who informed me that he obtained it from- 

 William P. Trumbull, who in turn had it from 'a taxidermist in 

 New York City.' This is all I have ever been able to Hnd out 

 about the specimen. — Wm. Brewster." 



$ jnv. '*I purchased my second Labrador Duck from Dr. 

 Thomas B. Heimstreet of Troy, New York, who bought it, with 

 some other skins, at the sale of a collection made by Mr. George 

 B. Warren of Troy. The skin bore no label whatever and I have 

 been unable to find out anything about its origin, although I wrote 

 to both of Mr. Warren's sons. The bird is evidently a young 

 male, for the black markings of the adult can be traced in por- 

 tions of the plumage, which, as a whole, is not unlike that of the 

 female." — Wm. Brewster. 



Mr. Austin F. Park, an ornithologist of Troy, New York, who 

 had seen and examined the above specimen, informed me that it 

 "was a well-made skin, apparently of an immature male, and 

 from the similarity of its make-up to that of several duck skins 

 that were in the same collection, and that were labeled as from a 

 taxidermist or dealer in the City of Qiiebec, Canada, I suspect 

 that perhaps the skin may have been obtained from that place." 

 Dr. Heimstreet lias furnished the following additional informa- 

 tion as to how the specimen in question came into his posses- 

 sion, and also of its original owner, Mr. Warren. "The Labra- 

 dor Duck which I sold to Mr. William Brewster in November, 

 1S87, was from the collection of the late George B: Warren, who 

 was one of the oldest residents and business men of Troy, where 

 he was born, and where he died May 8, 1S79, in his eighty- 

 second year. Mr. Warren studied and collected birds as an ama- 

 teur upwards of forty years, and had occasionally received orni- 

 thological visits from Audubon and Baird. At his death he left 

 to his widow a few hundred nicely mounted specimens of birds, 

 and many hundred bird-skins, embracing some of the very rare 

 birds of America. In 1879 the widow presented most of the 

 mounted birds to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, 

 and disposed of a large portion of the skins to II. N. Camp, of 

 this city, and myself. We divided the s;ime between us, and I 

 did not discover that I had the Labrador Duck in my share of the 

 skins for many months." 



