The Harlequin Duck. i^? 



Family— ANA TIDAi. 



Harlequin Duck. 



Cosmonetta histrionica, LiNN. 



A]\IALE of this species was picked up dead on tlie coast, near Filey, in the 

 autumn of 1862, and subsequently came into the possession of Mr. Whitaker, 

 of Rainworth Lodge. 



On December 2nd, 1886, three were shot at the Fame Islands, off the North- 

 umberland coast, QixAy two of which were recovered. One of these, a young male, 

 was sent in the flesh to the Rev. Julian Tuck, ( "Zool." 1887, pp. 70-71). The 

 second, also a young male, exhibited by Mr. Howard Saunders at a meeting of 

 the Zoological Society, March 15th, 1887, is now in Mr. Chase's collection, at 

 Edgbaston, ("Zool." 87, p. 190). Mr. Harting, ("Handbook of British Birds"), 

 has recorded a dozen supposed instances of the occurrence of the Harlequin Duck 

 in Great Britain during this century from 1806 to 1858 ; no reliance, however, 

 can be placed on the majority of these records, and the specimens in many 

 instances have been proved to belong to some other species, (see Professor Newton, 

 " Ibis," 1859, PP- 162-66, and Mr. J. H. Gurney, " Rambles of a Naturalist," 

 pp. 263-69). On the Continent there is an adult male in a private collection at 

 Lausanne, shot on the lake on September 12th, 1865, ("Ibis," 1891, p. 184), 

 recorded by Mr. Howard Saunders. 



In Burope the Harlequin Duck is exclusively confined to Iceland, where it 

 breeds. In Greenland it is a summer resident, breeding quite commonly as far 

 north as the 69th parallel. On the mainland it nests across the whole of northern 

 North America, as far south as Newfoundland, and westward to the northern Rocky 

 Mountains and Sierra Nevada, to lat. 38" or farther. In winter it visits the middle 

 States and California, and is numerous on the Great Lakes, specially on Lake 

 Superior. 



The Harlequin Duck nests in Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, (and is especially 

 numerous there in winter and spring), Kamtchatka, and over a considerable district 

 of North-eastern Siberia ; its range westward on the northern shores of Asia is 

 uncertain ; it occurs in flocks in the Prybilov Islands ; in winter it visits the 

 north coast of the Main Island of Japan, and the neighbourhood of Yokohama. 



