70 NOTES ON THE 
sons of migration and occasional winters. The absence of white 
in contrast with the uniform black, identifies the species very 
readily. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Tail of sixteen feathers; bill much swollen on the basal 
third; basal portion of culmen, convex, and rapidly descend- 
ing; terminal portion of bill much depressed; anterior extrem- 
ity of nostrils half way from the lateral or upper feathers at 
the base of the bill to the tip; swelling at base of bill divided 
by a furrow along the median line; frontal feathers extending 
slightly forward in an obtuse point; colcr entirely black all 
over, without any white; bill black along the edges and tip, the 
swollen basal portion red to beyond the nostrils. 
Length, 23.80; wing, 9.20; tarsus, 1.80; commissure, 2.14. 
Habitat, coasts and larger lakes of North America. 
OIDEMIA DEGLANDI Bonaparte. (165.) 
WHITE-WINGED SCOTER. 
The White-winged Scoters are not often seen before the third 
week in October or even a little later than that, and very 
rarely in any considerable numbers. A few of them get into 
the market at such times, but are so unsaleable that they are 
liable to remain on hand some time. Occasionally they are 
purchaséd and mounted by the taxidermists. Later they are 
only found in open shallow streams where the rapidity of the 
current prevents the formation of ice, and in spring-holes near 
large water courses. More commonly but a pair is found in 
one locality during the winter. Their food consists of molluscs, 
crustaceans and fish, the latter predominating. In open 
winters they leave the State by the 15th of March. I have no 
record of their presence later than the 25th of that month. 
Mr. H. W. Howling, of East Minneapolis, has a pair of these 
Ducks mounted in his possession which he has kindly per- 
mitted me to examine very recently. The male had the ‘‘white 
elongated patch around and a little behind the eye” excessively 
developed. It reached nearly to the top of the head. The 
female had besides the ‘‘whitish patch on the side of the head 
behind the eye,” another rather obsolete one in front and be- 
low the eye. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Bill very broad, wider towards the tip than at the base; 
feathers extending far along the side of the bill, and on the 
forehead for nearly half the commissure, running in an obtuse 
point about as far forward as the lower corner of the outline of 
