616 THE DIVING BIRDS — I'YGOPODES. 



Had. CJoasts and islands of the North Pacific (Kamtschatka, Prybilof Islands, Aleutians, etc.). 

 Japan. AccidenUd in Sweden ! 



Sp. Chau. Adult, hrcalinij-plmnaijc: Head (all round), sides of neck, sides, and entire upper 

 parts slate-dusky or dull black, ni re plumbeous on the throat, which is usually more or less mixed 

 with whitish. Lower parts, excepi as describi'd, jilain wliite. A line of narrow acicular white 

 feathers beginning just beneath tlie eye and extending back over the auriculars. IJill wholly 

 orange-red; iris white; feijt browiiish in the dried skin. Adult, in viiitcr (I) : " Upper jiarts as 

 described above, but no whitisli featluvu below and behind tlii' eye. Entire under parts white, mar- 

 bled on the throat, breast, and sid(!s with dusky or blackisli ; this color usually occu|>ying chietly 

 or wholly the tips of the featliers, whose bases are white. The mottling is thickest on the breast, 

 most sparse on the abdomen; but it varies in degree with ahuost every specimen" (CoL'E.s). 

 Young {}) : "A state of plumage is described as thai, of the young, in which the white occupies 

 ahuost the whole under parts, and is scarcely mixed with dusky, even on the throat and breast" 



(COUKS). 



Wing, about 5.4(M).(H) inches ; culmen, about .GO ; greatest depth of the bill nearly the same ; 

 tarsus, l.tM) ; middle toe, 1.10. 



In his " Monograph of tlie Alddir," Dr. Coues describes the adult as having the "chin, throat, 

 breast, and (tanks fuliginous or brownish black, lighter or grayer below than above;'' but in a 

 series of nearly fifty examples, including thirty-nine collected on the breeding-grounds in June 

 and July, not one has the breast uniform dusky, the greater number having iu)t only tin? breast, 

 but tlie jugnlum also, wh'e, the latter, however, clouded with dusky.* In many even the chin 

 and throatr are mottled with grayish white. All these speciuu^ns, it may be rennirked, possess the 

 streak of white filaments across the auricular region. 



This is an oceanic ami a North Pacific spccii's, resident in the open sea, and only 

 visiting land for the purposes of breeding. It is fouiul in the Aleutian Islands, ami 

 also at the I'rybilof Group, and is distribvted irregularly throughout the Northern 

 I'acitic and Ueliriiig's Sea. 



It is of accitlental occurrence in Sweden. M. Olplie-Galliard records in the " Revut! 

 ct Magasin de Zoologit; " (18G8, pp. On, 90) the oecnnencc in Sweden of tin individual 

 of this species. It was taken alive near Jiinkiipiiig about the middle of December, 

 18(J0; and the "Ibis" of 18(59 (p. 221), gives from I'rofessor Suudeval some further 

 particulars of this extraordinary fact. The bird bad crept, through a fence set along 

 the edge of the water by the side of Lake Vetter, into the courtyard of a weaving 

 manufactory, where it was caught by two men, and soon alter died. Its siiecies was 

 determined by Professor Fredrik Malmgren, of the University of Linul. 



Mr. Dall, in liis Notes on the Avifaumiof the Aleutian Islamls west of Uiuilashka, 

 speaks of it as resident ami iu)t uiicomnu)n at Anudiitka, but not seen anywlu're else. 

 He thinks that Urandt is mistaken in supposing that the peculiarly shaped bill is used 

 for opening bivalve shells. lie; has never found anything in its crop except fragments 

 of Crustacea, and thinks that the bird uses its sliari), recurved lower nuimUble in 

 tearing out the softer jtarts of the larger Isopods, and in ])icking them out of crevices 

 in the rocks and from under round stoiu's. 



Mr. II. W. Elliott states that this (piaintly beaked bird is quite common on the 

 Prybilof Group, and that it can be obtained at St. George's in considerable numbers. 

 It comes here early in May, and selects a deep chink or crevice of some imiccessible 

 cliff, where it lays its single egg and rears its young. It is very quiet and unde- 

 monstrative during the pairing-season, its only note being a low, sonorous, vibrating 

 whistle. Like the Simorhynvhus cristatvllttH, it will breed in company with the 



> Since the alwyo wiis written, seveml spcciiiiens from nchring's Island, collected by Dr. \,. Rtcjneger 

 in May, 1882, have Imhmi received at tin- Niitinnid Miiseiun. These Imvo tliu throat and upjKr pttrt of the 

 jngidiini uniform dusky ; but the whole breast is pure white, like tlio alMlunicn. 



