2l8 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



females were obtained in the preceding 15 years. Mr Dutcher says in the 

 Auk, volume 10, page 270, that several specimens of this species were shipped 

 to England and Germany between 1843 and 1850; and in the Auk, volume 

 II, page 176, that 30 specimens are found in North American collections 

 Of these 7 are in the American Museum of Natural History, N. Y., c? in the 

 collection of the Long Historical Society, c? in the Brooklyn Institute of 

 Arts and Sciences, J* in the Vassar College Museum, c? and 9 in the State 

 Museum at Albany. 



We find references to the occurrence of this species at Laprairie, 

 Canada, in 1862 [see Can. Nat. & Geol. 8:426], and at Elmira, N. Y., Decem- 

 ber 12, 1878 [see Gregg, Am. Nat. 13:128]; it is likely, however, that these 

 reports were made on insufficient evidence, as no bona fide specimens are 

 known from the interior. The Labrador duck was preeminently a mari- 

 time species frequenting the bars and sand shoals along the coast and feed- 

 ing almost entirely on moUusks and other shellfish. Gunners for this reason 

 often called it the Sand-shoal duck. Its breeding grounds are supposed to 

 have been on the coast of Labrador and the shores of Baffin's bay, but as 

 far as we know no specimens of eggs or ducklings occur in musetims. 



Without doubt this species is now extinct, the last specimens according 

 to Dutcher [Auk, 11:4-12] having been taken on the shore of Grand Manan 

 in 187 1 and on Long Island in 1875. It is probable that the cause of its 

 extermination will remain a mystery; but its restricted range, the com- 

 parative ease of taking it, and the possibility of a calamity to its breeding 

 grounds, may be regarded in this connection. 



Somateria dresseri Sharpe 

 American Eider 



Plate ig 



Somateria dresseri Sharpe. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. July 187 1. p. 51 

 Fuligula mollissima DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 332, fig. 250 

 Somateria dresseri A. O. U Check List. Ed. 2. 1895. No. 160 



somate'ria, Gr. cr5/*a, o-witaTog-, body, and Ipiov, down; dres'seri, of H. E. 



Dresser 



Description. Adult male: Feathered angle on the forehead not 

 extending forward as far as nostrils, feathers on sides of bill extending as 



