326 ANATID^E : SWANS, GEESE, AND DUCKS. 



KING EIDER DUCK. 



SOMATERIA SPECTABILIS (L.) Boie. 



Chars. Bill with broad, squarish, nearly vertical frontal processes 

 bulging angularly out of line with the culmen proper. Male 

 in breeding attire black, including a forked chin-patch, a frontal 

 band, and space around eye. Neck and fore parts of the body, 

 part of the interscapulars, of the wing-coverts, and of lining 

 of wings,- together with a flank patch, white; creamy on the 

 jugulum ; greenish on the sides of the head, the crown and nape 

 fine bluish-ash. Female resembling that of the common Eider, 

 but bill differently shaped. Size of the last, or rather less. 



A rare winter visitor along our whole coast. Linsley 

 speaks of two Connecticut examples, Giraud gives the 

 bird as from Long Island, and Coues ascribes a range 

 from the Arctic coast to New York. A copy of Board- 

 man's Calais list in the possession of Mr. Purdie is 

 annotated in manuscript with the remark, that the 

 King Eider breeds in that vicinity. Allen notes what 

 appears to have been an irruption of King Eiders on 

 Lake Erie, near Buffalo, N. Y., in November, 1879, 

 when at least eighteen individuals were shot. 



AMERICAN BLACK SCOTER. 



CEDEMIA AMERICANA (Wils.) Sw. 



Chars. Bill scarcely encroached upon by the frontal feathers, 

 shorter than the head, the gibbosity superior, circumscribed, 

 orange (male) ; nostrils at its middle ; tail normally 16- 

 feathered. Plumage of male entirely black. Female sooty- 

 brown, paler below, becoming grayish-white on the belly, 



