The Common Scoter. '^3 



I 



Tlie breeding range of the Common Scoter extends from Iceland across the 

 whole of Northern Europe and Asia, at least as far as the valley of the Ob, in 

 which region Dr. Otto Finsch got the young in down in 1876, and found the 

 species not uncommon on the tundra lakes.* 



According to Mr. Gillett, and also Th. Von Heuglin, the Common Scoter 

 was frequently observed by them in Novaya Zemlya and Waigats Island. Messrs. 

 Alston and Harvie-Brown saw immense numbers in the White Sea, in July. It 

 passes down the Volga on migration in the autumn, and probably winters both on 

 the Caspian and Black Sea. Canon Tristram found it on the coast of Palestine 

 in winter. 



The Common Scoter is, however, rare in the Mediterranean. Dr. F. H. H. 

 Guillemard records one oflF the Cyprus shore in March, in 1888. Professor H. H. 

 Giglioli only knows of one authentic capture in Italy, an adult male in November, 

 1830. He adds that two adult males at Verona are said to be Italian, (" Ibis," 

 1 88 1, p. 215). It was seen oflf the Albanian coast by Lord Lilford. In the 

 western Mediterranean a few were seen and recorded by Col. Irby, at Santander, 

 in May and June, and large numbers, chiefly young birds, in November. Mr. 

 Howard Saunders saw one specimen in the Malaga market, in January, 1868. I 

 mention these few facts to shew the great scarcity of the Common Scoter on 

 the southern coasts of Europe. 



In some seasons it is very common about the Straits of Gibraltar, from the 

 middle of November to the middle of March ; on the coast of Portugal from 

 August to March and April. Immense flocks occur on the south side of the 

 entrance to the Douro, and Mr. W. C. Tait says he found the tail feathers much 

 frayed, probably from striking the sand or stones at the sea bottom when tearing 

 off shell-fish, or when turning to rise, ("Ibis," 1887, p. 378). 



On migration, which invariably takes place at night. Scoters have been known 

 to cross a great extent of land. A few years since a lost and bewildered flock flew 

 against the lamps and factory windows of a manufacturing town, in North Yorkshire, 

 and numbers were picked up ; these were supposed to be travelling from west to east. 

 Numbers probably pass by the Volga, and the tributaries of that great river, from 

 Arctic Russia to the Caspian. There are also suggestions of an overland route 

 from the southern extremity of the North Sea, near Dunkirk, to the Gulf of 

 the Lion and the mouths of the Rhone. 



* In the "Zoologist," 1892, pp. 151-228, Mr. Charles Fowler and Mr. Anderson, (Curator of the Chichester 

 Museum),^also "Zoologist," 93, p. 151, — record, on what seems fairly satisfactory evidence, the nesting of the 

 Scoter in Earnley marshes, near Chichester. The male bird was shot, and seven young were seen only just 

 able to fly. The question is would the male bird have been with the young? Mr. Anderson's independent 

 experience, already cited, supports this view. 



