OP THE BEITISH ISLANDS. 361 



Family ANATID^. Genus Maebca. 



Subfamily A mating. 



AMERICAN WIQEON. 



MAEECA AMBEICANA.-((?meZm). 



Anas americana, Gmel., Syst. Nat. i. p. 526 (1788) ; Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 

 543 (1885) ; Dixon, Nests and Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 161 (1894) ; Seebohm, 

 Col. Pig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 39 (1896). 



Mareca americana (Gmel.), Macgill. Brit. B. v. p. 90 (1852 ; Yarrell, Brit. B., ed. 4, 

 iv. p. 403 (1885) ; Salvadori, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxvii. p. 233 (1895) ; Sharpe, 

 Handb. B. Gt. Brit. ii. p. 281 (1896); Lilford, Col. Pig. Brit. B. pt. xxxiii. (1896). 



Geographical distribution — British: The American Wigeon is a very 

 rare and accidental visitor to our Islands; its claim to rank as a "British" 

 species being supported by most unsatisfactory evidence. It is with much 

 hesitation that I have included this species in the present work, and my chief 

 reason for doing so is to stimulate the interest of British sportsmen, and 

 to put them on the qui vive in case examples chance to visit our Islands. 

 That this bird does so from time to time is far from improbable ; but until we 

 have more positive proof than that forthcoming, every careful student must feel 

 dubious of its claim to rank as an accidental wanderer to our shores. The 

 evidence is as follows : Leadenhall Market (one example, which may have been 

 captured on the Continent and consigned with other fowl to London), winter of 

 1837-38 ; coast of Essex (one example, not confirmed by any recognised authority), 

 January, 1864 ; Devonshire (one example, not confirmed by any recognised 

 authority), April, 1870; Yorkshire, one example, obtained at a game dealers in 

 Leed, February, 1895 ; Scotland : Banffshire (one example, not preserved, and 

 entirely unauthenticated) , January, 1841. Ireland: Strangford Lough, Co. 

 Down (one example, not preserved, and recorded by Thompson on hearsay 

 evidence), February, 1844 {Conf. Thompson, B. of Ireland, iii. p. 112). One 

 example is said to have occurred in France ; and Mr. Howard Saunders records 

 a specimen as being in a collection of birds at St. Michael's, in the Azores. This 

 together with the fact that the bird wanders to the Bermudas and is rarely or 

 never kept in captivity in our Islands, is confirmatory evidence of its accidental 

 occurrence in them. Foreign : Nearctic region, more southerly in winter ; 

 northern limits of Neotropical region in winter. It breeds in the Arctic regions 

 of America from Alaska to the Hudson Bay basin, as far north as lat. 70°, and 



