430 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



Family ANATID^E. Genus HENICONETTA. 



Subfamily FULIQULIN&. 



STELLER'S EIDER. 



HENICONETTA STELLERI (Pallas). 



Anas stelleri, Pallas, Spic. Zool. vi. p. 35, tab. v. (1769). 

 Stellaria dispar (Sparrm.), Macgill, Brit. B. v. p. 164 (1852). 



Somateria stelleri (Pall.), Dresser, B. Eur. vi. p. 649, pi. 447 (1871) ; Yarrell, Brit. 

 B. ed 4, iv. p. 468 (1885) ; Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 613 (1885) ; Dixon, 

 Nests and Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 181 (1894) ; Seebohm, Col. Pig. Eggs Brit. 

 B. p. 63, pi. 9 (1896). 



Heniconetta stelleri (Pall.), Salvadori, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxvii. p. 419 (1895) ; 

 Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iii. p. 34 (1896). 



Geographical distribution. British: Steller's Eider is a very rare 

 straggler to the British Islands in autumn and winter. The very slender claim 

 of this species to rank as "British " is based upon the following occurrences 

 England : Norfolk (one example), February, 1830. Shot at Caistor, near 

 Yarmouth, a nearly adult male, formed the subject of the illustration in Yarrell's 

 British Birds and is now preserved in the Norwich Museum ; Yorkshire (one 

 example), August, 1845. It was shot on the sea off Filey Brigg, a male assum- 

 ing nuptial plumage, and is now in the collection of Lord Scarsdale. Foreign : 

 North-eastern Palaearctic region, and possibly the extreme north-west of the 

 Nearctic region, more southerly and westerly in winter. The exact breeding 

 range of this species is very imperfectly known. It has been found breeding in 

 Kamtschatka, on the islands round about Behring Strait, the Aleutian Islands 

 (although the fact is doubted by Stejneger), the delta of the Lena, the Taimur 

 Peninsula, the coast of Kussian Finmark, and in the Varanger Fjord. Mr. Nelson 

 states that it breeds in tens of thousands along the north coast of Siberia. In 

 winter it is found in Northern Norway, in the Baltic, in the Sea of Okhotsk, 

 and off the coasts of the Kurile Islands. During this season it has been observed 

 in Denmark, Heligoland, North Germany, and France. 



Allied forms. None of sufficient propinquity to call for notice. 



Habits. But little has been recorded of the habits of Steller's Eider. The 

 bird appears, however, very closely to resemble its congeners in its economy, being 

 eminently a sea Duck and almost sedentary, only wandering in winter from its 



