182 AXATID^E. 



Genus HENICONETTA G. K. Gray, List Gen. Birds, 

 1840, p. 75. 



Type : E. stelleri (Pallas). 



Heniconetta, originally spelled Eniconetta, from entires = single, unique, and 

 vfjrra=a Duck. 



Heniconetta stelleri. STELLER'S EIDER. 



Anas Stelleri Pallas, Spicil. Zool. fasc. vi. 1769, p. 35 : 

 Kamchatka. 



Heniconetta stelleri (Pall.) B. O. U. List, 1st ed. 1883, p. 133 ; 



Salvador!, Cat. Birds . M. xxvii. 1895, p. 419. 

 Somateria stelleri, Saunders, Manual, 2nd ed. 1899, p. 463. 



Stelleri, in honour of Geog Wilhelm Steller (1709-1746), a German 

 naturalist and traveller, who first discovered the bird in Kamchatka, 1741 42. 



Distribution in the British Islands. A Rare Visitor which 

 has occurred twice : a nearly adult male, Caistor, Norfolk, 

 Feb. 1830, and an immature male, Filey Brigg, Yorkshire, 

 Ana. 1845. 



General Distribution. Steller's Eider inhabits the arctic 

 and sub-arctic coasts of the northern Hemisphere. It 

 breeds in the arctic portions of the coasts of Siberia, from 

 the Taimyr Peninsula eastwards to Alaska and the Aleutian 

 Islands : it is also said to have nested at Varanger Fjord 

 and in Russian Finmark, but this has been denied. In 

 winter it ranges to northern Europe, visiting the coast 

 of Norway regularly ; it is sometimes not uncommon in the 

 Baltic and has occurred off Heligoland and Denmark. It 

 is rather numerous on the coasts of Kamchatka, and is 

 found in the Kurile and Aleutian Islands ; also sometimes in 

 Greenland, and has wandered once as far south as Quebec. 



Genus SOMATERIA Leach in Ross' Voyage of Discovery, 

 App. 1819, p. xlviii. 



Type : S. mollissima (Linn.). 



Sonwtcria from ffwita, genit. <Tti5/iaros, the boclr, and eptor wool (down)j 

 which its breast supplies; in the breeding-season. 



