412 THE GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL 



Family ANATID^E. Genus COSMONETTA. 



Subfamily FULIGULIN&. 



HARLEQUIN DUCK. 



COSMONETTA HISTEIONIC A (Linnaus) . 

 PLATE XL. 



Anas histrionica, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 204 (1766). 



Clangula histrionica (Linn.), Macgill. Brit. B. v. p. 169 (1852). 



Cosmonetta histrionica (Linn.), Dresser, B. Eur. vi. p. 609, pis. 600, 613 (1877) ; 



Yarrell, Brit. B. ed. 4, iv. p. 452 (1885) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. pt. xxx. (1895) ; 



Salvadori, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxvii. p. 395 (1895) ; Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iii. 



p. 31 (1896). 



Histrionicus minutus (Linn.), Dresser, B. Eur. vi. p. 613 (1877). 

 Fuligula histrionica (Linn.), Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 594 (1885) ; Dixon, Nests 



and Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 171 (1894) ; Seebohm, Col. Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 



49, pi. 15 (1896). 



Geographical distribution British : The Harlequin Duck is a very 

 rare and accidental straggler to the British Islands. Out of a score or more 

 examples recorded as " British," about half-a-dozen only have withstood the test 

 of a searching inquiry into their antecedents. (Conf. Prof. Newton, Ibis, 1859, 

 p. 162, and J. H. Gurney, Bumbles of a Naturalist, p. 263). The claim of this 

 species to rank as " British " rests on the following evidence, which appears to be 

 thoroughly reliable : Scotland : Lewis (?) (two examples, recorded by Montagu 

 in 1802 and presented to Mr. Sowerby, by whom they were figured in his British 

 Miscellany in 1806) ; Aberdeenshire (one example), 1858, a male in full adult 

 plumage. England : Yorkshire, one trustworthy example, found dead in the 

 autumn of 1862; Northumberland, off the Fame Islands (three seen, two 

 secured, both young males), December, 1886. There is a male example of this 

 Duck in the Torquay Museum, which may have been obtained in Tor Bay 

 (Conf. Bird-Life in a Southern County, p. 290). Foreign: Eastern Palaearctic 

 and Nearctic regions. Probably a Nearctic species that has only comparatively 

 recently extended its range into the Old World. It is a resident in Iceland 

 and breeds in Greenland, south of the Arctic circle. It breeds across the North 

 American Continent from about the Arctic circle south to lat. 45. Thence it is a 

 resident in the Aleutian Islands, and probably breeds in Kamtschatka, the 

 Stanavoi Mountains, the valley of the Amoor, and the Baikal district. The 



