SOMATEHIA LABRADORIA. 207 



begun to think it had left us, as I had not heard of a fuU-plumaged male 

 being captured for ten years. I have been shown two which were mistaken 

 for the young ; but one was a young albino Scoter, and the other I did not 

 know. Not many years ago it w^as a common bird all along our coast, from 

 Delaw^are to Labrador ; and in the New-York market there would at times 

 be dozens of them, and then for a few years not one. It would be very 

 interesting to know where they have gone. Though so much has been 

 written of the distribution, summer- and winter-homes of birds, w^ithin a few 

 years, their breeding-habits, line of travel north and south, and from the 

 numerous collectors who have gone to Labrador, the fur-countries, and across 

 the continent, yet not one word is said about the Labrador Duck — a common 

 bird a few years ago. So good a flyer and diver cannot be extinct, like the 

 clumsy AIca impennis (Great Auk) ; and any collector who may take a fuU- 

 plumaged bird, or know where they have gone, by letting it be known in the 

 ^Naturalist' would interest many of its readers. — Geo. A. Boardman, 

 Milltown, Me:' 



Pennant, in his ^Arctic Zoology,' vol. ii. (published in 1792), has two 

 illustrations and a description of the Pied Duck (or, rather, the same in two 

 places), which appear to be the first known representations. At p. 282 he 

 gives the account, and adds : — '' Sent from Connecticut to Mrs. Black- 

 burn. Possibly the great flocks of pretty Pied Ducks, which whistled as 

 they flew or as they fed, seen by Mr. Lawson Q History of Carolina,' p. 148) 

 in the western branch of Cape-Fear inlet, were of this kind." 



We find the following, on " Fuligula lahradora/' in ' Birds of Long 

 Island,' by J. P. Giraud, jun., 1844, p. 327 :— 



" This species is called by our gunners ' Skunk Duck,' so named from 

 the similarity of its markings to that animal. With us it is rather rare, 

 chiefly inhabiting the western side of the continent. In New Jersey it is 

 called ^Sand-shoal Duck.' It subsists on small shell- and other fish, which 



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