132 LOBIPEDID.E. 



plumage of winter. Some years since, A. B. Lambert, 

 Esq. presented to the Zoological Society a beautifully 

 marked adult bird ; this was killed in Wiltshire in the 

 month of August, and retained at that time a great por- 

 tion of the true red colours of the breeding-season, or 

 summer plumage ; and I have occasionally seen specimens 

 obtained in December and January, and then exhibiting, 

 of course, the perfect grey plumage of winter. 



They feed on the smaller thin-skinned Crustacea and 

 aquatic insects, which they search for and pick up from the 

 surface of the water while swimming ; and their attitude 

 resembles that of the Teal, with the head drawn back- 

 wards. A specimen in my own collection, killed in No- 

 vember 1824, while swimming on the Thames near Bat- 

 tersea, was seen there by a gardener, who went home, a 

 distance of a mile and a half, to fetch his gun, and on his 

 return found the bird still swimming and feeding near the 

 same spot. 



This species breeds in Iceland, Greenland, on the North 

 Georgian and Melville Islands. The eggs are usually four 

 in number, of a stone colour tinged with olive ; spotted 

 and speckled over with dark brown ; measuring one inch 

 two lines in length, by ten lines and a half in breadth. 

 The egg here described, which is in my own collection, and 

 is figured in Mr. Hewitson's work, was brought from 

 Melville Island, and also the female bird in summer 

 plumage, from which the figure in the back-ground of the 

 illustration was drawn and engraved. 



This species has now been obtained in so many different 

 counties in England, as to render the particular enumera- 

 tion of them unnecessary ; in some instances they were 

 found to be so tame as to allow of very close approach^and 

 in one instance that came to my own knowledge, the bird . 





