206 General Notes. rea 
The Canvas-back Duck in Massachusetts. — Four specimens of this 
species (Aythya vallisneria), two of each sex, were shot in Silver Lake, 
Pembroke, Plymouth County, Dec. 18, 1896, from the stand of Mr. Thomas 
Arnold of North Abington. I have seen a pair of them that he has had 
mounted. There were five in the flock. Mr. Arnold authorizes me to 
report this capture. 
A single Canvas-back, a male, was seen by Mr. J. E. Bassett in Nippe- 
nickett Pond, Bridgewater, Nov. 26, 1896, accompaning two Dusky Ducks 
(Anas obscura). The three swam almost within gunshot of the stand, 
allowing a protracted scrutiny of them through a field glass, and another 
later in the day. Mr. B. has shot hundreds of Red-heads, and at once saw 
that this was a different bird, and described to me all the characteristics of 
A. vallisneria with perfect accuracy. These, with other reported occur- 
rences, indicate a phenomenal flight of the species in Massachusetts in the 
late fall of 1896.— HERBERT K. Jos, Worth Middleboro’, Mass. 
Type Locality of Fuligula collaris.—It has sometimes happened in 
the annals of ornithology that a species has been discovered or first 
described from a locality remote from its subsequently ascertained normal 
range —I do not mean by mistake, such as that which originated Pzcuzs 
cafer for a Mexican bird, supposed to be South African, but from actual 
capture of an individual far from its proper habitat. We have a striking 
case of this happening to Barrow’s Golden-eye, properly a North American 
bird, of only casual occurrence in the locality whence its name zslandica is 
derived. In fact, the original appearance of this bird in print is as the 
Clangula of Brisson, Orn., 1760, VI, p. 416, pl. 37, fig. 2, where it is incon- 
testably described and figured, along with a copious synonymy of the 
Common Golden-eye or Garrot, which Brisson thought he had in hand, 
though his bird was actually a Barrow’s Golden-eye, in the Réaumur 
Cabinet. This is clear from the description of the white eye-spot, which 
Brisson says is “versts synciput tn acumen producta”—runs up to the 
forehead in a point, and his plate shows the point plainly. Another case, 
which it is the object of this note to explain, is the original naming and 
describing of the Ring-necked Duck from a British-killed individual, far 
from its normal range, in one part of which, however, the bird had before 
been actually discovered. As is well-known, Azas collaris of Donovan 
was first named and published in 1809 (Brit. B. VI, pl. 147), upon a spec 
imen taken in England (found fresh in Leadenhall Market, if my memory 
serves merightly). But before that date, near the mouth of the Columbia 
River, this species was discovered by Lewis and Clark. It is described 
with unusual particularity by them, in the orig. ed. of Biddle’s History 
of the Expedition, Vol. II, 1814, p. 195; but the description as then 
rendered was so mangled by the ostensible editor, Paul Allen, that it 
became almost unrecognizable, and it was not until I examined the 
explorers’ original MSS. that what they meant was made clear: see my ed. 
of 1893, p. 888. The bird was killed by one of their men at Deer Island 
