248 THE DIVING DUCKS 



was taken by Captain Sandeman and Mr. H. Noble in Sutherland in 1899. It was 

 also recorded as breeding in one of the Uists in 1906 by Messrs N. B. Kinnear and 

 P. H. Bahr (Annals Scot. Nat. Hist., 1907, pp. 82 and 213 ; Brit. Birds, ii. p. 209). 

 The supposed Fifeshire record has been shown to be unreliable (Brit. Birds, ii. p. 132). 1 

 Outside the British Isles a few are believed to breed on the Faeroes, and on Iceland 

 it is extraordinarily plentiful, especially near Lake Myvatn, but is only a casual in 

 Greenland. In Scandinavia it breeds on the Norwegian high fjeld and in East 

 Finmark, but also on the Swedish fjeld and on the coast near Stockholm, on Got- 

 land, Oland, etc. In Russia it nests in North-west Finland, also in Novgorod and 

 possibly the Petersburg governments, while recently it has been found breeding off 

 the coast of the Russian Baltic provinces, and on Bornholm in 1879. It is also said 

 to have bred exceptionally in N. Germany. In Asia it breeds commonly on the 

 tundra of W. Siberia, but the East Siberian birds as well as the North American 

 form have been separated. During the winter months it migrates southward to 

 the Mediterranean region and North-East Africa (Lower Egypt and Abyssinia 

 according to von Heuglin), the Black and Caspian Seas, Palestine, Arabia Petraea, 

 the Persian Gulf, and India, while migrants to China, Formosa, the Philippines, and 

 Japan no doubt come from E. Siberia, and American birds range south to Texas 

 and Mexico. [F. c. B. j.] 



3. Migration. Although it has been recorded as breeding within our 

 area, the scaup is almost entirely a whiter visitor and a bird of passage in the British 

 Isles. Occasionally recorded as early as 1st August, the whiter visitors ordinarily 

 arrive between 13th September and 9th November ; while the periods of passage 

 are from 22nd September to 9th November and from 24th March to 12th June 

 (cf. Clarke, Studies in Bird Migration, 1912, vol. i. pp. 136, 160). It is common 

 in the north of Ireland, but scarce in the south except in severe seasons. In that 

 country the scaup is occasionally recorded in August and usually seen in September, 

 while most of the birds are there by mid-October, their numbers being apparently 

 not increased during subsequent hard weather : some often linger till late in April, 

 and are occasionally met with up till August (cf. Ussher and Warren, B. of Ireland, 

 1900, pp. 207-8). It appears rather irregularly on the Yorkshire coast, but is 

 sometimes very numerous in hard seasons ; it arrives towards the end of October, 

 and is sometimes seen as late as May (cf. Nelson, B. of Yorks., 1907, p. 468). On 

 the coast of North Wales it is not uncommon (cf. Forrest, Fauna of N. Wales, 1907, 



1 For full details as to breeding in Scotland, see P. H. Bahr's article in British Birds, 

 ii. pp. 209-217. 



