THE AMERICAN EIDER. 613 



decidedly numerous anywhere on the lake front, and may venture well inland 

 upon the smaller lakes and reservoirs, to the Ohio River, and several winters 

 may pass without another visitation. Specimens have been taken from the 

 gill nets off Lorain in five fathoms of water, where they had dived for fish 

 and become tangled in the nets and drowned. Several spent the winter of 

 1901-02 on the lake shore in Lorain County" (Jones). 



The Old-squaw obtains this name and others like it from its habit of 

 vivacious jabbering while in flock upon the water. It has besides a peculiar 

 and rather musical call-note, given as a salutation or summons while the bird 

 is on the wing, a sort of nasal trumpeting quite impossible to represent. The 

 birds are graceful and very swift fliers, and the elongated tail serves a useful 

 purpose in helping to check flight, enabling the bird to alight quickly. A 

 pair of them seated upon the water are handsome enough to merit the name 

 applied to them by the hunters of the Pacific Coast, "Lord and Lady." Their 

 fief is some icy cliff or bleak island in the far north, and they quit home only 

 reluctlantly, upon compulsion of the great white scourge. 



No. 302. 



AMERICAN EIDER. 



A. O. U. No. 160. Somateria dresseri Sharpe. 



Description. — Adult male: Top of head (including top "of loral space) 

 black, divided on hind crown by narrow median greenish white; the remainder 

 of head, neck, and breast, upper back, and lower back on sides of rump, scapulars, 

 lesser wing-coverts, and tertiaries white, tinged with cream-buff or pale vinaceous 

 on breast, and with pale green (oil green) on the head behind and on sides, and 

 along the lower border of coronal black for nearly the whole length ; rest of 

 plumage deep sooty brown or brownish black ; culmen slightly concave ; angle of 

 bill on side of forehead broad and rounded; bill at least .45 (11.4) wide across 

 middle. Adult female and immature : All ochraceous on head and neck finely 

 streaked with dusky; darker on crown and nape; under-parts sooty gray barred 

 with lighter and darker; the breast strongly tinged with brownish; above dusky, 

 heavily tipped with brownish and buffy-ochraceous ; — of obscure coloration, but 

 bill and characters as in male; smaller. Length 20.00-26.00 (508.-660.4) wing 

 11.50 (292.1) ; tail 3.50 (88.9) ; bill from posterior angle of nostril to tip 1.42 

 (36.1) ; from anterior extremity of loral feathering to apex of frontal angle 1.85 

 (47.); tarsus 1.75 (44-S)- 



Recognition Marks. — Mallard to Brant size ; black and white plumage with 

 light green on hind head ; feathers of head dense and puffy ; feathers of lore reach- 

 ing as far as nostril; angle of bill on side of forehead broad and rounded. 



Nesting. — ^Does not breed in Ohio. Nest, on the ground, in cranny of cliff, 

 or in dense beach grass ; heavily lined with down. Eggs, 4-8, sometimes 10, pale 

 bluish or pale olive green. Av. size, 3.00 x 2.00 (76.2 x 50.8). 



