184 BIRDS. 



CEdemia perspicillata (L.). Surf Scoter, 



Although not as common as Messrs. Baikie and Heddle's work 

 would lead their readers to suppose, yet this species seems to 

 have occurred on several occasions. 



Mr. Eanken's father saw three on one occasion when crossing 

 from St. Mary's to St. Margaret's Hope in March 1845 ; they 

 were too wild to allow him within shot. 



Mr. Moodie-Heddle tells us a Surf Scoter was seen in Long- 

 hope in September 1847, and his father saw four at the same 

 place on October 16th, 1857. Mr. Moodie-Heddle himself has 

 seen three specimens at various times among Velvet Scoters, 

 but never tried to kill them. 



Many have been recorded in the Field, and we cannot do 

 better than quote, in extenso, what has been written about these 

 later Orcadian occurrences in the 4th volume of the 4th edition 

 of Yarrell, pp. 482, 483 : 



" In the Orkneys, however, it seems to be of frequent and 

 perhaps annual occurrence, from autumn to spring, although 

 never in great numbers. An adult male was shot at Swanbister, 

 in the parish of Orphir, in March 1866. One perhaps the 

 same specimen was in the collection of the late Joseph H. 

 Dunn, and another, which was doubtless killed in the Orkneys, 

 is in the local museum at Stromness. Captain Clark-Kennedy 

 has recorded, in the Field of March llth, 1876, one obtained 

 off Hoy Island in 1872, and another at the entrance of Loch 

 Stenness, Stromness. In the same paper, under date of 18th of 

 March 1876, Dr. Eae remarks: 'In the latter part of Septem- 

 ber, or during October, I have seen one or more in Orkney for 

 the last ten years in the large bay which separates Kirk wall 

 from Firth and Kendall.' In February 1875, Mr. T. M. Pike, 

 when staying at Stromness, got close to, and fired unsuccess- 

 fully at, a Surf Scoter which was swimming with three Velvet 

 Scoters in the Sound near Eyssa Little, and exactly a year later 

 he killed at the same place, and in similar company, a fine adult 

 male (Zool 1879, p. 336). The Rev. S. A. Walker informs the 

 editor that, on '-the 23d of October 1880, he obtained an adult 

 male off the above-mentioned Ryssa Little, the trachea of which 



