STELLEIl'S WESTERN DUCK. 307 



the kindness of Mr. Charles Buckler, who allowed me the 

 use of a drawing taken by himself from the bird at Nor- 

 wich, I am enabled to give an exact representation of that 

 British-killed specimen. It is a male very closely approach- 

 ing the perfect plumage of an adult. 



George N. Curzon, Esq., of Weston Lodge, near Derby, 

 sent me word, that on the 15th of August, 1835, he shot 

 a Duck of this species while it was sitting on the sea just 

 off the rocks of the promontory, called Filey Bridge, six 

 or seven miles south of Scarborough. The bird was alone, 

 Mr. Curzon very obligingly sent the skin for my exami- 

 nation. It proved to be that of a male, but, like some 

 other males of this family, exhibited the colour of the 

 plumage of the female over the head and neck ; but the 

 autumn moult having commenced, the white feathers 

 about the head, and the black feathers on the chin and on 

 the bottom of the neck behind, which distinguish the 

 adult male, were just beginning to make their appear- 

 ance, forming an interesting state of change. The bird 

 was preserved for Mr. Curzon's collection. 



This species of Duck has now been killed three or four 

 times in Sweden, and once in Denmark. Professor Nils- 

 son, in his Fauna of Scandinavia, has given coloured 

 figures of both sexes ; and M. Temminck further remarks 

 that it visits the Eastern parts of the North of Europe, 

 and has occasionally wandered into Germany. 



It inhabits Asia and North America ; was originally de- 

 scribed, from specimens obtained by S teller, in Kamt- 

 schatka, where it breeds upon rocks inaccessible to man. 

 Dr. Latham mentions that there was a specimen formerly 

 in the Leverian Museum. Examples have been brought 

 from the Western side of North America, and it was in 

 consequence called the Western Duck, and Anas occidua. 

 The description of the plumage of the adult male here 



