Brewer on the Rocky Mountain Golden-eye. 149 



■ Although alpine, there is absolutely nothing to authorize us in re- 

 garding this species as " circumpolar," or even " arctic," if by arctic 

 it is intended to imply that it breeds chiefly within the Arctic 

 Circle. It is not known to occur in any part of Asia, is unknown 

 in Russia, and has never been known to breed in any part of Eu- 

 rope, except Iceland, where it is resident, and restricted to a very 

 small district of that island. No specimen has ever been taken in 

 Great Britain, and it is unknown to the I'est of Europe except as a 

 very rare straggler. Four individuals are recorded as having been 

 taken at different times on different parts of the coast of Norway, 

 and one in Southern Spain, but these five seem to comprise all of 

 its European I'ecord outside of Iceland. 



In North America its distribution appears to be not only through- 

 out the northern portions of the continent from Greenland, on the 

 east,, to the Yukon region on the west, but it is now also known to 

 breed throughout the mountain ranges as far south, at least, as 

 Southern Colorado, in latitude 38° ; and although the fact has not 

 been positively ascertained, there seems no good reason to doubt 

 that it also breeds among the high mountain ranges that lie farther 

 south, in New Mexico and Arizona. Its abundance in (,'olorado is 

 not in harmony with its being I'egarded as an exclusively Northern 

 species. After Richardson and Nuttall, Dr. J. G. Cooper appears 

 to have been the first of our ornithologists to put upon the record 

 the presence of this Duck among the western mountain ranges of 

 the United States. In the "American Naturalist" (III, p. 83), in 

 an article entitled " The Fauna of Montana Territory," Dr. Cooper 

 mentions his having seen a number of dark -headed Ducks which he 

 refers to this species, and no doubt correctly, although he was not 

 able to procure an example. 



Reinhardt has also recorded the islandicus as a bird of Greenland, 

 where, as he states, it breeds in South Greenland, and has been 

 procured in the neighborhood of both Godthaab and Nenortalik. 

 Holboll states that in Greenland its range is restricted to the space 

 between 63° 45' and 64° 30'. North of this the natives do not 

 know it at all ; so that its northern limit is two degrees south of 

 the Arctic Circle. In Maine and New Brunswick a few pairs are 

 found each summer undoubtedly breeding, though no nests have 

 been detected, as far south as the forty-fifth degree. Mr. George 

 A. Boardman informs me that they are somewhat rare in the neigh- 

 borhood of Calais, but become much more common on the St. Croix 



