SCOTER. NATATORES. OIDEMIA. 331 



unnoticed by naturalists, furnish characteristics of sufficient 

 apparent value (as I have before stated), to warrant its sepa- 

 ration from them. The trachea also does not possess the 

 distinct and well defined enlargements, or bony swellings, so 

 conspicuous in the other two species, but gradually increases 

 from the larynx to the middle, where it attains its greatest 

 diameter, from whence it again decreases to the lower larynx 

 or bone of divarication, which is slightly swollen, and to 

 which the bronchi, formed of cartilaginous rings, and of a 

 greater diameter than any part of the tracheal tube, are at- 

 tached. Upon land this bird walks with difficulty, and in a 

 semi-erect position, from the posterior situation of the legs. 

 It abounds throughout the northern parts of Europe, Asia, 

 and America, and is found during the summer in very high 

 latitudes. It breeds near to the coast, or on the banks of 

 rivers, within the course of the tides, or upon the edges of 

 such inland seas as it may frequent. The nest is formed of Nest, &c. 

 grass and other vegetable matter, mixed and lined with a 

 quantity of its own down ; and the eggs, from six to ten in 

 number, are white. The gizzard of this species is of great 

 size and muscular power, well adapted for triturating the 

 shelly and tough food upon which, as I have before noticed, 

 it subsists. Dr FLEMING, in his History of British Animals, 

 has inserted the White-headed Duck (Oidemia leucocephala), 

 as a rare British species, but his description, both as to size 

 and plumage, does not accord with those of LATHAM and 

 TEMMINCK. I am therefore inclined to think that he has 

 mistaken the young or female of the Black Scoter for the 

 above species ; or that he has described one hitherto un- 

 noticed, but nearly allied to our present bird. The latter, 

 I suspect, to be the case, as I possess a specimen said to have 

 been killed upon the Scottish coast, which I cannot reconcile 

 with Oid. nigra. The plumage of this bird (which I take 

 to be a female or young male) is blackish-brown above ; the 

 lower parts pale broccoli-brown, with lighter undulations; the 

 crown of the head, occiput, and nape of the neck, deep black- 



