3386 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
took wing, the stranger seeming particularly tame, and being the last to 
leave the water, affording as it did so an easy cross-shot. It fell to my first 
barrel, but instantly diving came up astern of the yawl, and flew off as 
though not touched; the second barrel also had no effect in stopping its 
career. The boatman and I watched its flight, nevertheless, and both saw 
it fall with a splash about a third of a mile away, but on getting to the spot, 
which we were not long doing, could see no more of it, although the water 
under the lee of Rysa was as smooth as glass; nor could I hear any more 
of it during the time I was then in Orkney. In February of the next year, 
1876, I was at Stromness again, and the first fine day,—which rarely 
occurs in an Orkney winter,—the tides suiting, I started again down the 
sound of Hoy to see if another North American stranger should chance to 
be amongst the Velvet ducks. This time I took the precaution of towing 
down a gunning-punt astern of the yawl, with a hundred-pound gun, feeling 
considerable distrust of the powers of a small gun to stop such a tough 
customer as I had met with the previous year. I was again fortunate 
enough to find one, within half a mile of the place where the former bird 
had occurred. About a dozen Velvet ducks were swimming in a bay formed 
by the island of Rysa, and on approaching these with the punt I found a 
Surf Scoter in company with them. On getting up within shot this bird 
separated itself from the rest, and as it seemed very tame, and the big gun 
was turned full on it, affording little chance for escape, even if it suddenly 
rose, which the Scoter has a difficulty in doing. I watched it a bit from 
the punt before pulling the trigger-line. The flock of Scoters were now 
some distance away, when one of the birds left the others and swam rapidly 
towards the Surf duck; thinking this might be a female, I waited for the 
birds to get in line, and fired just before they crossed. When the smoke 
cleared one bird was floating dead upon the surface, and almost immediately 
the other came up from a dive and flew off. I was afraid at first that last 
year’s misfortune had been repeated, but on getting up to the dead bird 
I had the pleasure of picking up an adult male Surf Scoter, in most perfect 
plumage. It had luckily escaped much damage from the storm of shot 
(17 oz.) from the punt-gun, a single pellet having passed through the lower 
portion of the elongated white patch on the nape of the neck. I felt less 
surprise at the failure of my small gun on handling the wonderfully thick 
soft and velvet-like plumage. As for the other two specimens I heard about 
in Orkney, one of them is in the museum at Stromness, in a most miserable 
state of preservation, having suffered severely from moth and damp. In 
fact, had I not been expressly told to look out for a Surf Scoter, I might 
easily have passed it over without notice ; nor is its history very satisfactory, 
an uncertainty existing as to the place in which the bird was obtained, 
I should scarcely have made mention of this bird had not the late Mr. Joseph 
Dunn assured me that the birds in the museum were all local specimens, and 
