664 



through which and a large patch in front are orange-yellow, the rest of the bill being bluish black ; 

 iris dark brown; legs dark dull olivaceous. Total length about 20 inches, gape 2"4, wing 9o, tail 4 - l, 

 tarsus l - 8. 



Adult Female (Archangel, 9th August) . Upper parts dull dark brown, the feathers with lighter edges ; 

 crown dark brown, much darker than the back ; sides of the head greyish black ; chin and upper throat 

 pure white ; breast and flanks dull brown ; centre of the abdomen white, marked with brown ; bill 

 without the bulb at the base, only slightly swollen towards the base of the upper mandible, dull bluish 

 black in colour ; legs dull olivaceous. 



Young. Resembles the female, but is duller and rather more uniform in colour. 



Young in down. Upper parts dark brown, unspotted ; chin white ; cheeks and abdomen greyish ; the chest 

 crossed by a dark band ; bill blackish plumbeous ; legs olivaceous. 



Obs. I have been unable to ascertain whether the male of the present species has a late summer plumage ; 

 and none of the Swedish or German naturalists appear to have been in a position to elucidate this ; but 

 it seems probable that, like other ducks, it assumes in the early autumn a dress resembling that of the 

 female, and probably in that dress the old males have been mistaken for immature birds. 



Found throughout the northern portions of Europe and Asia during the summer season, the 

 common Scoter ranges south during the winter season, but does not go beyond the Atlantic and 

 North-German coasts, except as a straggler. With us in Great Britain it is tolerably widely 

 distributed off the coasts during the winter season, and certainly breeds in several parts of 

 Scotland. Dr. Saxby says (B. of Shetl. p. 253) that it is an occasional winter visitor to the 

 Shetlands, being more frequently seen upon the west coast of the mainland than in the north 

 isles, and then only in very small numbers. He observed it in Unst as late as the middle of 

 May ; but there is, he adds, no reason to suppose that it breeds there. Beferring to its nesting 

 in Scotland, Mr. A. G. More writes (Ibis, 1865, p. 445) as follows: — "Mr. W. Dunbar tells me 

 that the Black Scoter breeds every year in many parts of the moors in Caithness, making its nest 

 in the boggy swamps around the lakes. He has known the eggs taken more than once. Mr. 

 R. J. Shearer writes that " a ' Black Duck ' is well known as breeding on one or two lakes in the 

 Thurso district." The late Roualeyn Gordon Gumming told Captain Elwes that he had on two 

 or three occasions shot the bird off its nest in Inverness-shire ; and the latter gentleman saw a 

 young bird, half-grown, which was killed in the upper part of Strathglass early in September. 

 In a letter from Mr. E. T. Booth, who probably knows more, and has published less, about the 

 breeding of rarer species of birds in Scotland, than most ornithologists, he informs me that the 

 present species nests in several parts of Caithness ; he has seen eggs and young in two or three 

 different localities in Sutherland, and once in Inverness. In some parts of Caithness it is, he 

 adds, so numerous that one might expect to find four or five, or even more, nests in a day's 

 search. 



It has not been known to breed in England, but in winter is met with regularly off the coast 

 down to the shores of Devon and Cornwall, occasionally during severe weather visiting inland 

 sheets of water. Referring to its occurrence off the Somersetshire coast, Mr. Cecil Smith writes 

 to me that it is " by no means so numerous a winter visitant to our coast as it is to the south 



