268 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 
A female is said, in Morris’ “ British Birds” (V., p. 258), 
to have been shot on the Don near Doncaster, and I have 
tried to do the same by that, but all the information I 
could get was that it was procured alittle above the town 
by a Mr. Cartwell, that Mr. Reid the well-known birdstuffer 
was guarantee for its being correctly named, and that the 
Rev. W. E. Strickland purchased it, and there I lost the 
clue; but the locality assigned, so distant from the sea, is 
against its having been a Harlequin. 
A Duck which Mr. J. Cordeaux shot at Bridlington is 
described in the Zoologist (ss. p. 23) as a Harlequin, which 
he thought it was at the time, but is now inclined to believe 
that it was a young Long-tail, and hence has excluded it 
from the “ Birds of the Humber.” It was not preserved. 
The author of the “Birds of Bucks and Berks” (p. 206) 
tells us of a Harlequin killed at Maidenhead. I had my 
suspicions about it as soon as I read the passage, and they 
were well founded, for Mr. E. Andrews, in whose possession 
it is, writes me that it has “a beautiful black-and-white 
top-knot lying down the neck similar to a horse’s mane.” 
This settles the question as far as the Harlequin is con- 
cerned, and though not a very precise description, applies 
tolerably well to the American Wood Duck, and I will 
hazard a guess that this is what it is. 
I scarcely care to make any allusion to two, said to have 
been taken in the island of Arran, for I know them to have 
been so utterly unworthy of credit—one in 1844, the other 
in 1856. 
Not one whit more trustworthy is the account quoted 
from the Times by Mr. Simeon (Stray Notes on Fishing, 
p. 209) of a too-confiding “ Harlequin,” which visited the 
pond of a “Naturalist” and became “quite domesticated 
there,” though all will agree with his protest against its sub- 
sequent fate. 
And here I bring to an end this bloodstained roll of 
