RUDDY SHELDRAKE. 



IF it was stretching a point to admit the Smew among 

 North American birds, when two females, it was 

 claimed, had been taken in the flesh within our 

 boundaries, what is to be said of this species' 

 application for membership in our avi-fauna, based 

 as it is upon two statements, one, that Dr. Van- 

 hofifen, a member of an expedition to West Green- 

 land sent by the Geographical Society of Berlin, 

 reported that he saw a skin of this species in a 

 collection of birds at Augpalartok in the District of 

 Uppernavik, that was collected in that vicinity in 1892; 

 and the other that, in 1895, Wenge of Copenhagen re- 

 ports another specimen from North Greenland? These 

 are the solitary instances of this bird's occurrence any- 

 where within what may be termed the limits of North 

 America, which have been recorded. Doubtless Old- 

 World species that breed in very high latitudes some- 

 times on the return journey go slightly astray from their 

 regular course, and touch, possibly for a few brief mo- 

 ments, on some parts of boreal North America, and many 

 more species probably dcf this than we shall ever know, 

 but it is only to record an historical fact that any notice 

 of these waifs and strays is taken at all, and they can in 

 no way be considered as American birds. 



This Duck is not, strictly speaking, however, a native 

 of northern climes, but ranges in Southern Europe and 

 Asia, and only accidentally goes to the Scandinavian 

 Peninsula and Iceland. So rare is it in the north that. 



