212 Ditcher on the Labrador Duck. [April 



Collection of tJie Boston Society of Nat7iral History., Boston., 



Mass. 



$ juv. "In the above collection, which is under my charge, 

 we have an immature male Labrador Duck. It was donated to 

 the Societv vears ago by Theodore Lyman. No date or locality ; 

 supposed to have been taken on the coast of New England." — 

 Charles B. Corv. 



"The Boston Society specimen is a young male, very much 

 like my Troy specimen." — William Brewster. 



Collection of DaUionsie College., Halifax., Nova Scotia. 



$ and 9 . "The only specimens I know of in Nova Scotia are 

 a pair (male and female) in the possession of Dalhousie College, 

 in our City. rhey were originally owned by Rev. Di". Mac- 

 Culloch, of Pictou, Nova Scotia. He was somewhat oi a nat- 

 uralist and a friend and contemporary of Audubon, who fre- 

 quently mentions his name in his work. Dr. MacCulloch made 

 a collection of birds and willed them to Dalhousie College; they 

 were in very bad order, and the only specimens of any value 

 were the pair of Labrador Ducks vvliich have been remounted." 

 — Thomas I. Egan. 



The following excerpts from a paper read before the Nova 

 Scotian Institute of Natural .Science, May lo, i8S6, by Mr. An- 

 drew Downs, refers to the specimens in the Dalhousie College 

 Collection:* "Dalhousie College Museum contains a very rare 

 pair of birds which have now become extinct, the Pied, or Lab- 

 rador Duck. Attached to them is this label — 'Family, Anatina, 

 Brisson; genus, Fuligula ; Fuligula Labradora, Lath. Pied Duck. 

 Male and Female. Very Rare.' I think the Dalhousie Museum 

 very fortunate in possessing a male and female of this rare duck. 

 I have been a close observer of the birds of this Province for 63 

 years, and I have never seen this bird in the flesh, other than a 

 specimen given me by William VVinton of Halifax, who obtained 

 the specimen, a male, in the market." 



Mr. Harry Piers, of Willow Park, Halifax, under date of No- 

 vember I, 1S90, informs me: "I was talking with Mr. Downs, 

 the other day, and his views are still the same as expressed in his 



* Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science, Vol. VL pp. 326- 

 327- 



