262 THE DIVING DUCKS 



VELVET-SCOTER [Oidemia fusca (Linnaeus). French, grand macreuse ; 

 German, Sammet-Ente ; Italian, orcho marind]. 



1. Description. The velvet-scoter may at once be distinguished by the 

 white bar across the wings and the forward growth of the feathers of the lores, 

 which project beyond the level of those of the forehead. The sexes differ in colora- 

 tion. (PL 164.) Length 22 in. [558 mm.]. The male is wholly black save for a 

 small white patch below and behind the eye, and a white bar across the wings 

 formed by the tips of the major coverts and the secondaries. The beak is of a pale 

 orange colour, but the base and edges are black, and a black line runs from the 

 nostril forwards to the nail. The feet and toes are of a dull orange-red, the webs 

 black. The iris is white. The female is of a dark brown colour, the feathers of 

 the upper surface margined with grey. The under surface of the body is whitish 

 on the breast. The white wing-bar is formed only by the secondaries. The beak 

 and iris are brown ; the feet are paler than in the male. The juvenile dress 

 resembles that of the female. The downy young differs from that of the common- 

 scoter in being paler underneath, [w. p. p.] 



2. Distribution. This bird is only a winter visitor to the British Isles, 

 and the statement that it has bred in Scotland cannot be substantiated and is 

 improbable, though non-breeding birds have been known to stay through the 

 summer with us. On the Continent it breeds in the high f jeld of Southern Norway 

 and thence northward to East Finmark ; also in Sweden from Skane and Blekinge 

 northward to the Russian border, as well as on Oland and Gotland ; in Finland from 

 Viborg northward ; and in Russia according to Buturlin in Esthland, the Pinsk 

 marshes, Lake Onega, Lapland, the lower Petschora and Archangel government, 

 Novaya Zemlya (rarely), and also in the Simbirsk government and the mountain 

 lakes of Transcaucasia. Statements that it has bred in Podolia and Germany 

 require confirmation. East of the Urals it nests hi the Perm government ; and in 

 Siberia on the Ob and in the Tobolsk government. In East Siberia and in North 

 America it is replaced by allied races. On migration it ranges to the North Sea, 

 Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas, and has been recorded as far south as the 

 east and west coasts of Spain, Marocco, Sardinia, the Adriatic, Lower Egypt, North 

 Persia, and Turkestan, while it has occurred as a casual in the Faeroes and Greenland. 

 [F. c. E. J.] 



3. Migration. A winter visitor and bird of passage from Northern 



