THE LABRADOR DUCK 369 
be taken the lucky gunner would find it the 
most profitable bit of seafowl shooting of his 
career, for he might command his own price 
for the prize. I think the last recorded speci- 
men, as published by the ‘‘Auk,’’ the official 
journal of the American Ornithologist’s Union, 
was one taken at Grand Menan Island in 1871. 
There are very few specimens in collections 
(some forty in this country and perhaps twenty 
across the water) and it is probable that these 
will always be highly prized, the value of each 
bird increasing every year. Very few can be 
had at any price. The figure paid at the last 
sale of which I knew was $1,000 per duck. 
Cast in the heavy ponderous mould of the 
seaduck, short of wing, slow and heavy in flight, 
and comparatively clumsy in model, the bird 
bears some resemblance to the eiders both in 
shape and markings. As it was fitted out with 
all the advantages possessed by the coots and 
eiders, it is hard to see why the race should 
have died out. Audubon tells of its breeding 
habits. It was a strictly maritime species and 
nested from the coast of Labrador into the 
north, in winter coming southward to the waters 
of the Chesapeake. This is about all we know 
