The Greater Scaup Duck 



Recognition Marks. — Smaller than Mallard; head, neck, and breast black 

 (female brown); belly and sides white (male); bill bluish with black nail. Larger. 



Nesting. — Does not breed in California. Nest: On the ground in a grassy 

 swamp, of grasses, etc., lined with feathers and down. Eggs: 6 to 10; pale olive- 

 buff to olive-buff. Av. size 62.5 x 45.5 (2.46 x 1.72). Season: June. 



General Range. — Breeds from the Aleutian Islands, northwestern Alaska, 

 Great Slave Lake, and central Keewatin, south to northern North Dakota, and southern 

 British Columbia; and, formerly at least, on Magdalen Islands, and on St. Clair Flats 

 (in western Ontario). Winters from Maine to Florida and the Bahamas, and from the 

 Aleutian Islands south to California; in the interior from Colorado and the Great 

 Lakes to Texas. 



Distribution in California. — Fairly common winter resident coastwise to 

 Point Conception, less common or rare to San Diego. Occurs also occasionally in the 

 interior, chiefly at San Joaquin-Sacramento Valley points. 



Authorities. — Baird (Fulix marila). Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. ix., 1858, p. 

 791 (San Diego; San Francisco; Bodega); Nelson, Rep. Nat. Hist. Coll. Alaska, 1887, 

 p. 71 (habits; nest and eggs; Alaska); Willett, Pac- Coast Avifauna, no. 7, 1912, p. 25 

 (status in s. Calif.). 



THE RARITY of marila, as compared with affi-nis, in southern 

 waters, invites incessant scrutiny of a group which otherwise would be 

 set down as "just ducks." Roughly speaking marila decreases in numbers 

 from Puget Sound southward ; so, while it is of fairly regular occurrence 

 on the bays and coastal waters of western California, its occurrence any- 

 where south of Point Conception is deemed worthy of special notice. 

 Indeed, reports of Greater Scaups seen in this section must be taken with 

 a grain of allowance, unless accompanied by explicit mention that Lesser 

 Scaups were at hand for comparison. 



Nesting, as they do, in Alaska and the northern interior, we know 

 the Scaups only as late migrants and winter residents, more or less un- 

 comfortable, according to the amount of local gun-fire. They keep rather 

 more to open water than do their lesser kinsmen. 



At a northern station, namely, Semiahmoo Spit, upon our inter- 

 national boundary, I have seen the assembling of clans which must later 

 distribute themselves more widely, and dribble out down our western 

 coast. The earlier arrivals come in small flocks of from a dozen to twenty- 

 five individuals, borne upon the wings of a northwest breeze, and as they 

 pass the narrow promontory of sand, the waiting gunners exact toll of 

 those which enter the harbor. LTpon the waters of an inner bay, Drayton 

 Harbor, the incoming birds assemble in a great raft, five or ten thousand 

 strong, and, if undisturbed, deploy to dive in shallow water, feeding not 

 only upon the eel-grass itself, but upon the varied forms of life which 

 shelter in its green fastnesses. 



It is not uninteresting to watch a small platoon of these somewhat 



1808 



