208 SOMATERIA LABRADORIA. 



it procures by diving. Its flesh is not considered a delicacy. A few are 

 seen in our market every season." 



The above statement as to the bird frequenting the western side of the 

 continent is perhaps taken from Nuttall, and is a mistake. 



In the 9th edition of the ' Encyclopsedia Britannica/ in Prof. Newton s 

 portion of the article on ''Birds/' we have as follows :— 



''Far less commonly known, but apparently quite as certain, is the doom of 

 a large Duck which even fifty years ago was commonly found in summer about 

 the mouth of the St. Lawrence and the coast of Labrador, migrating in winter to 

 the shores of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, New England, and perhaps further 

 southw^ard. For many years past, according to the best-informed American 

 ornithologists, not a single example has been met with in any of the markets 

 of the United States, where formerly it was not at all uncommon at the 

 proper season ; and the last known to the writer to have lived was killed by 

 Col. Wedderburn in Halifax Harbour, in the autumn of 1852. (It is needless 

 to observe that no one at that time had any notion of its approaching 

 extinction.) This bird, the Anas lahradora of the older ornithologists, was 

 nearly allied to the Eiders (Somateria), and, like them, used to breed on rocky 

 islets, where it was safe from the depredations of foxes and other carnivorous 

 quadrupeds. This safety was, however, unavailing when man began yearly 

 to visit its breeding-haunts and, not content with plundering its nests, 

 mercilessly to shoot the birds. Most of such islets are of course easily 

 ransacked and depopulated. Having no asylum to turn to — for the shores 

 of the mainland were infested by the four-footed enemies just mentioned, and 

 (unlike some of its congeners) it had not a high northern range — its fate is 

 easily understood. No estimate has yet been made of the number of 

 specimens existing in museums ; but it is believed to be not very great." 



Latham says (Gen. Hist, of Birds, vol. x. p. 318) : — 



" 82. Pied Duck. — Inhabits the coast of Labrador, from whence a pair 



