The Velvet Scoter 

 (QEdemia Fusca). 



THE Velvet Scoter (CEdemia Fusca) is generally 

 designated the Velvet duck or double Scoter. This 

 fine species is also a sea duck in the most extensive 

 sense, and is a winter visitant on our coasts. They are 

 easily taken by the gunner, who can generally contrive to 

 get quite close and well within range, for the extreme 

 shyness which is oftentimes attributed to them is not a 

 reality. They do not usually rise until the pursuer is 

 within forty yards of them. 



Their food is chiefly bivalve molusca, frequently those 

 of a very hard structure; the strong covering of their very 

 powerful gizzard enables them easily to bruise and 

 triturate. Its range of migration is also very wide, for out 

 of Britain the continental ornithologists have found it in 

 Southern Italy. Its places of nidification are, however, 

 not narrated, but it has been observed by northern 

 'travellers in Norway, Sweden, and Scandinavia, and in 

 Lapland it is common everywhere. In North America it 

 is also migratory. 



Plumage entirely of a deep velvet black, except a pure 

 white spot on the lower eyelid, which passes behind the 

 eye in the form of an acute angle, and the tips of the 

 greater covers, which are of the same colour, and show a 

 bright and strongly contrasting bar across each wing ; on 

 the head and neck the colouring is without lustre and 

 soft ; the base and margin of the bill are black, the other 

 parts bright orpiment-orange ; inside of the tarsus 

 carmine-red, toes orange- red, the membranes black. 



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