PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 259 



ing length of 8 inches, sometimes with jagged broken edges. 1 Naumann includes 

 cockles (Cardium), Venus, Nerita, and even the whelk (Buccinum undatum). 

 Mr. W. Evans gives a list of twelve species of molluscs, besides various crustaceans, 

 sea-anemones, cuttle-fish, etc., found by the examination of forty-two birds shot 

 in the Orkneys in 1885 (Brit. Birds, iii. p. 165). Crustacea are also very largely 

 devoured, and sometimes three or four big crabs may be disgorged by shaking 

 from a shot bird (A. Chapman). On one occasion a crab was found in the gizzard 

 and a starfish in the crop (H. W. Robinson). Other occasional articles of diet are 

 marine algae, small fish, and, according to Naumann and Hantzsch, also spawn 

 and entrails thrown overboard by fishermen. One instance of a six-inch blenny 

 (Zoarces viviparus) being disgorged is recorded by G. Bolam, while Newstead 

 found in one female many remains of beetles (Hydradephaga and Geodephaga). 

 The young are tended by the duck, and soon learn to pick up the small molluscs 

 and crustaceans on which they feed at first. [F. c. B. j.] 



6. Song Period. The wailing notes of the male may frequently be heard 

 in chorus from the first spring days till well into June at the great colonies in 

 Iceland, but are less frequently uttered by those birds which breed with us, though 

 occasionally heard in autumn. [F. c. B. J.] 



SCOTER [Oidemia nigra (Linnaeus). Black-duck, black-scoter, douker ; black- 

 dyker (Lanes.) ; seahen (Northumberland). French, macreuse ; German, 

 Trauer-Ente ; Italian, orchetto marino]. 



1. Description. The scoter is at once distinguished by its black coloration 

 and the peculiar markings on the beak. The sexes differ in coloration. (PI. 164.) 

 Length 20 in. [508 mm.]. The beak of the male is marked by a swollen base and 

 the yellow area surrounding the nostrils. The iris is brown, and the legs and toes 

 are black. The female is of a sooty brown colour, save the cheeks, which are greyish 

 white, and the throat, which is dirty white. There is only a slight swelling at the 

 base of the beak. Young birds resemble the female, but have white under parts 

 obscurely mottled with brown. The nestling is of a uniform dark brown above, 

 the throat white, and the under parts greyish brown, [w. p. P.] 



2. Distribution. This species has a very restricted range in the British 

 Isles. Its main breeding-grounds are the " flows " and moors of Caithness and 



1 These shells are, of course, regurgitated as pellets, when the mollusc has been acted upon 

 by the gastric juices and the soft parts assimilated. 



