230 OCCURRENCE OF EUROPEAN BIRDS IN N. S. — PIERS- 



purchased from him and added to the collection of the 

 Provincial Museum at Halifax (accession no. 3829). The head 

 and neck are rufous-brown; crown creamy-white. Length, 

 as mounted, about 18.00 inches; wing, 9.85 inches; tarsus, 

 1.40 inches; bill, 1.32 inches. E. C. Allen, of Yarmouth, 

 who first informed me of the taking of the bird, said that 

 there were two other ducks like it in its company at the 

 time; but these, I think, may have been Baldpates (Mareca 

 americana) with which it is sometimes found. 



This, I think, is the first fully-recorded instance 

 of this European bird's occurrence in Nova Scotia, for 

 although mentioned in Andrew Downs's "Catalogue of the 

 Birds of Nova Scotia" {Trans. N. S. Inst. Nat. Sc, 1888, 

 vii, 147), with the mere statement "rare," no other particu- 

 ars are given, and it is not included in Dr. J. B. Gilpin's 

 '" Semi-annual Migration of Sea Fowl in N. S." (Trans. N. S. 

 I. N. S., V, 138). The word "rare," at any rate is not suf- 

 ficiently strong to correctly indicate it as a mere accidental 

 visitor. The localitj^ "Nova Scotia" given in Coues's Key 

 to N. A. Birds is referable back (per The Auk, Jan., 1889, 

 p. 64) to Downs's statement. M. Chamberlain, in his edition 

 of NuttalVs Ornithology, vol. ii, 1891, p. 313, says that 

 "every year more or less examples are seen along our coast 

 from Nova Scotia to Virginia". Chapman in his Handbook 

 of Birds of Eastern North America, 1912, p. 194, says the 

 species "is of rare but regular occurrence in Eastern North 

 America,'-' and has been taken in New York, Nova Scotia, 

 Newfoundland, and Greenland, south to N'ebraska, Missouri, 

 Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida, as well as in Alaska, 

 British Columbia, and California. All the Nova Scotia refer- 

 ences, I am convinced, can be referred to Downs's vague note. 



The species is a native of the northern part of the Eastern 

 Hemisphere, and it breeds within the Arctic Circle in Iceland, 

 and very possibly may be found breeding in Greenland. Its 

 somewhat regular casual occurrence in parts of North America, 



