ANATIDE. 469 
THE SURF-SCOTER. 
CEDEMIA PERSPICILLATA (L.inneus). 
The Surf-Scoter is a North American bird which has not infre- 
quently wandered in the cold season to our coasts—especially to 
the western side, where the influence of the Gulf Stream is felt. 
Since 1838, when its occurrence in British waters was first recorded 
by Blyth, two examples have been obtained near Weymouth, 
three in South Devon, one in Cornwall, two in the Scilly Islands, 
a young male off Lytham in Lancashire on December gth 1882, an 
adult drake at Crofton in Cumberland, and a bird near Stornoway 
in the Hebrides during the winter of 1865. But its favourite haunts 
between autumn and spring appear to be in the Orkneys, where 
at least six specimens have been obtained during the last twenty 
years, while a far larger number have been identified by thoroughly 
competent observers. In the Shetiands it has not yet been procured, 
but Robert Dunn stated that he made unavailing attempts to get 
within shot of a male in Roeness Voe in June 1847. On the east 
side of Scotland, one was shot in the Firth of Forth in 1852, and 
Gould seems to have obtained one earlier. In Ireland several were 
seen on Belfast Lough during September 1846, one of them being 
now in the museum of that town ; a bird was obtained at Clontarf, 
