62 NORTH AMERICAN DUCKS, GEESE, AND SWANS. 



Oidemia perspicillata (Linn.)- Surf Scoter. 



Breeding range. — This species breeds in northeastern Quebec (Point 

 de Monts), southern Labrador, and Newfoundland, north as far as 

 Hudson Strait; it is a summer visitor to the east coast of Greenland 

 (Kangerajuk) and to the west coast as far north as Disco Bay, but is 

 not known to breed; accidental in northern Europe; breeds abundantly 

 at Fort Churchill, Hudson Bay, at Great Slave Lake, probably at 

 Athabaska Lake, and north to the Arctic coast, west to the mouth of 

 the Mackenzie. It is a common breeder on the headwaters of the 

 Yukon, and from Sitka north to Kotzebue Sound. The species 

 apparently is lacking on the north coast of Alaska, but nonbreeding 

 birds are abundant on the coast of northeastern Siberia. Nonbreeders 

 are. found also all through the summer on the Atlantic coast south to 

 Long Island and on the Pacific coast to Lower California. 



Winter range. — The surf scoter remains around the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence until forced away by ice, and passes the winter from about the 

 Bay of Fundy south to Florida. It is enormously abundant from 

 -Massachusetts to New Jersey, and still common to North Carolina; 

 accidental in the Bermudas; it visits commonly the Great Lakes and 

 extends south rarely to Louisiana (New Orleans, March 20, 1890), 

 Illinois (opposite St. Louis, May 3, 1876), Kansas (Lawrence, 

 October 29, 1887), Nebraska (Lincoln, October 7, 1896; Omaha), 

 Colorado (Loveland, October 31, 1899; Denver, October 22, 1899), 

 Wyoming (Douglas, October 19, 1893); on the Pacific coast from the 

 Near Islands, and the Aleutians south to San Quentin Bay, Lower 

 California. 



Spring migration. — Birds from the south occasionally return to 

 Nova Scotia late in March, more commonly the first week in April, 

 and reach their breeding grounds about the first week in May. 

 Those that migrate through the interior are nearly three weeks later. 

 The Alaskan breeding grounds are reached about the middle of May. 

 Eggs have been taken at Fort Anderson June 25 and downy young 

 near Fort Yukon June 23. 



Fall migration.— In 1900 stragglers appeared off the coasts of Mary- 

 land and Virginia the last week in August, about three weeks earlier 

 than usual. The first fall migrants commonly arrive on the coast of 

 Massachusetts and Long Island Sound the middle of September and 

 are followed the second week in October by the main flight. The last 

 leave the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the average November 7. Arrivals 

 on the Great Lakes are rather later than in corresponding latitudes on 

 the coast. A few surf scoters are seen on the California coast in July 

 and August, though the main body hardly appears before November. 

 They leave St. Michael, Alaska, and the upper Mackenzie about the 

 middle of October. 



