SEA FOWL IN NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN- 145 



nual migration along our coasts, yet are never seen performing 

 it, or are a scene in the landscape. We find them feeding in our 

 inland lakes or dallying about our salt-tide marshes, and we 

 scarcely know if they are successive flights or the same flocks. 

 We have only what may be called stragglers from the eastern 

 wing of the great migration, which doubtless makes the great 

 freshwater streams and lakes their turnpikes further inland, and 

 our rarer species must be the involuntary stragglers that are 

 pressed towards the sea coast by westerly gales. The third 

 group of migratory sea fowl are purely pelagic and procure their 

 living by diving. They never affect the fresh waters or are seen 

 inland. They include the heralds, the scoters, the eiders the 

 rather scarce harlequin, and the almost extinct Labrador pied 

 duck. Of this last species Mr. Downs secured about thirty years 

 ago the three or four last specimens known in the Province. 

 One of them is in t^he collection of Col. Drummond in Scotland ; 

 Mr. Board man has one, and the third must be the specimen ob- 

 tained by Mr. Brewster, of Cambridge, Mass., lately, and marked 

 from Nova Scotia. Wilson, in 1818, speaks of examining many 

 specimens in the market of Philadelphia, and in 1830 it was well 

 known by the gunners of Newport, R. I., who called it the 

 skunk duck, from its black and white colors. It is probable this 

 species is becoming extinct, as the causes of its scarcity appear 

 now permanent. Of the king duck (S. spectabilis), I have only 

 noted three specimens, in market, Halifax, Dec. 11, 1871, one of 

 which is now in the collection of Mr. Boardman, St. Stephen's, 

 and though a male in full nuptual plumage, has the peculiarity 

 of having no frontal plates to the bill. This species is so emi- 

 nently pelagic in our latitudes as never to seek our ^shores un- 

 less driven in by gales of wind. The common eider or sea duck 

 as it is here called, is plenty, especially in the form of the female 

 and immature birds. I note that Mr. Egan informed me he once 

 watched a pair nesting near Halifax, N. S., but this is the only 

 instance that has come beneath my notice. With the exception 

 of the harlequin, which are rare, the old wives, the three species 

 of scoters, and the common eider ducks, make up our true 

 migratory sea fowl. 



