466 COMMON SCOTER. 
Boganida. When the Baltic is frozen it is found in vast flocks on 
the coast of Friesland, and is hardly less numerous off Holland, 
Belgium and Northern France. Along the Atlantic sea-board of 
Europe it is of regular occurrence in winter, reaching as far to the 
south-west as the Azores; and it is also met with up the Mediter- 
ranean as far as Tunisia, but is rare on the shores of Provence and 
Italy. On the inland waters of the Continent it is less frequent 
than the Velvet-Scoter, but it visits the Swiss lakes and appears to 
cross the Alps to the Adriatic at intervals ; while an important line 
of migration runs along the valley of the Volga to the Caspian, and 
Canon Tristram found the species on the coast of Palestine in winter. 
Throughout North America the representative is a closely-allied 
species, @. americana, in which the entire protuberance at the 
base of the bill is orange-yellow ; this form ranges across the Pacific 
to Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands, where it breeds, visiting Japan 
and the Corea in winter. 
The nest, usually placed on an island in a fresh-water lake, or 
among the heathery bogs in the vicinity, is composed of grass 
and moss with a lining of down; the eggs, laid during the first half 
of June, are 6-9 in number, and yellowish-white in colour : measure- 
ments 2°5 by 1°8 in. The food consists chiefly of molluscs, which 
the bird obtains by diving, and it generally approaches the shore 
with each flood-tide for the purpose of satisfying its appetite ; the 
flesh is oily and seldom eaten in this country. Like the rest of the 
genus, the Common Scoter dives well, and remains a considerable 
time under water. The call-note of the male during the breeding- 
season is rendered by Faber as ¢u-¢u-tu-tu, the female answering 
with a harsh re-re-re-re-re. 
The adult male has the central ridge of the upper mandible 
orange-yellow, the knob and the rest of the bill black; irides dark 
hazel ; upper plumage deep glossy-black, under surface duller ; legs, 
toes and webs dusky-black. Length 20 in.; wing gin. The female 
has the crown and upper parts sooty-brown, the margins of the wing- 
coverts a little lighter ; chin dirty white ; cheeks and sides of the 
neck greyish-brown ; lower part of the neck, breast, abdomen, vent 
and under tail-coverts dark brown ; no knob and no orange ridge on 
the bill; legs and toes dusky-olive, webs almost black. Young birds 
of the year, at the approach of their first winter, have the cheeks, 
chin, sides and front of the neck dull greyish-white, while the under 
surface of the body is mottled with white and brown. 
