1 86 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



Some years since, in my yachting days, I seldom came across a flock of the 

 Common Scoter, in Boston and Lynn Deeps, and off the Norfolk coast, without 

 seeing a pair or two of Velvet Ducks amongst them, distinguishable at a glance 

 by their white speculum. I have rarely obtained it within the estuary of the 

 H umber, although it is occasionally met with off the coast, near the Spurn, and 

 on the Lincolnshire side. 



The Velvet- Scoter, although a strictly marine bird, has been seen and obtained 

 much more frequently inland and on fresh water than its congener. 



This Duck has not been found nesting in Iceland, it is a chance visitor to 

 Greenland ; one, in the Copenhagen Museum, was got near Godthaab. It nests 

 generally across Northern Europe, and in Asia its range extends probably further 

 east than (E. nigra. Messrs. Alston and Harvie-Brown observed large flocks on 

 the south shore of the White Sea, in July. Dr. O. Finsch found it abundant 011 

 the Polar river on which Obdorsk is situated, and got the young in July, and Dr. 

 Theel observed it in lat. 69 and 69^ in Siberia. Mr. R. Swinhoe found it 

 exposed in the China markets and purchased an adult male, and was surprised at 

 its hugely muscular stomach full of thick bits of bivalve shells. It is not 

 uncommon in Japan, in winter, near Yezo, and is also a winter visitor to the 

 Yangtse Basin, where it meets the American form, CE. americana. According to 

 Mr. E. W. Nelson, it is one of the twenty old world birds known to occur in 

 Alaska. 



Returning to Europe, the Velvet-Scoter has once been obtained in Fseroe. At 

 Heligoland it occurs in winter under the same condition as CE. nigra, and in 

 equally enormous and incalculable numbers. Mr. E. Hartert, (" Birds of East 

 Prussia," Ibis, 92, p. 519), thinks of the two Scoters this is the most common 

 during the winter on the sea coast and Hafis. It visits Transylvania in winter ; 

 and in Italy, at the same season is not unfrequently obtained, both adult and 

 immature, from the Adriatic ; with this exception it does not appear by any means 

 common in the Mediterranean. It is said to be met with singly in Lower Egypt 

 in the winter.* In the western Mediterranean, Lord Lilford found it at Santander, 

 three or four being seen and one shot on November 21 St. It is very rare in 

 Sardinia, and there is a single specimen in the Museum at Cagliari, and has also 

 been recorded from Valencia. Colonel Irby did not meet with it in the Straits. 



Velvet- Scoters are said to winter on the Caspian, and it occurs on migration 

 in Turkestan. The only example known to Herr K. G. Henke was a dead bird 

 from a salt lake on the Kirghiz Steppes, (" Ibis," 82, p. 229). 



* Mr. A. J. Cholmley met with a pair on the western coast of the Red Sea, in January, 1896, ("Ibis," 97. 

 p. 200). 



