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SOME NOTES ON THE HAKLEQUIN-DUCK. 



BY 



CHARLES E. ALFORD, f.z.s. 



Though the Harlequin-Duck [Histrionicus histrionicus) is 

 •only a straggler to Great Britain, I suspect that it is of much 

 more frequent occurrence than is commonly supposed ; for 

 it is extremely shy, and judging by my own experience of 

 the bird, it would, in nine cases out of ten, be well out to 

 sea long before the intruder could approach sufficiently near 

 to identify it. It seems not improbable, therefore, that 

 the few stragglers that occasionally catch the eye of an 

 observer represent but a small proportion of those that 

 actually visit the coasts of Britain. 



Albeit the Harlequin is still but an accidental visitor to 

 our shores, and though it can scarcely be considered an 

 abundant species in any inhabited region of the world, I 

 found it fairly plentiful on the North Pacific coast of Canada 

 ■during the colder months of last winter, when it was my 

 good fortune to have it under almost daily observation from 

 the middle of December until its disappearance about the 

 second week in February. 



Though the Harlequin was always the rarest of my aquatic 

 visitors, the fact that it appeared regularly and in compara- 

 tively large numbers as far south as Victoria, B.C., throughout 

 a great part of last winter, whereas I only saw a single 

 individual during the corresponding season of 1913-1914, 

 seems to suggest either that it is becoming more abundant, 

 or that the severe cold in the more northerly regions during 

 December and January drove them farther south, and in 

 greater numbers than usual ; for only stress of weather 

 will cause the Harlequin to venture far from home, even in 

 the winter. The latter, therefore, seems the more likely 

 explanation, and is borne out, moreover, by the dates of its 

 appearance in the south. At Atlin, just south of the Yukon 

 boundary line, the temperature in December was five degrees, 

 and in January six degrees, below the average — the period 

 during which I found the Harlequin most numerous — whilst 

 that of February was fourteen degrees above the average, 

 and it is, at any rate, significant that after the seventeenth 

 ■ of that month I never saw a single individual. 



Their first appearance last winter was on the morning of 

 November i8th, when one male and two females appeared 



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