The Harlequin Duck 



of Georgia and Washington Sound; less commonly among the Olympiades, and prob- 

 ably along the entire coastline of California. Winters from the Aleutian Islands to the 

 coasts of California and Japan, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence regularly to Maine, 

 rarely to New Jersey, and casually to Florida; and in the interior of the United States 

 along the ice-line. 



Distribution in California. — Irregular winter visitor and probable summer 

 loafer (Santa Barbara, Aug. 2, 1914) coastwise; rare south of Monterey. Breeds spar- 

 ingly in the mountains at least in the Tuolumne section of the central Sierras. 



Authorities. — Cassin (Histrionicus torquatus), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. 

 xiv., 1862, p. 323 (Calif.); C. W. Michael and Enid Michael, Auk, vol. xxxix., 1922, p. 14, 

 pis. (habits in Yosemite Valley); Grinnell, Condor, vol. xxiv., 1922, p. 180 (San Luis 

 Obispo Co., southernmost record in Calif.). 



THE SCIENTISTS derive great satisfaction from their attempts 

 to tell us why certain things are so and so, and we nod gravely from time 

 to time in pretended comprehension; but there are matters which are 

 better left to folk-lore. We can understand in a measure how the par- 

 tridge came to look like dead leaves, and the snipe like dead grass, but who 

 may say in terms of cold logic how the Harlequin acquired his fantastic 

 livery? No; it must have been in this wise. The first Harlequin, before 

 he was a Harlequin, that is, was of a nearly uniform slate color, with some 

 relief of dull cinnamon. But, clad in this somber garb, folks mistook him 

 for a coot, which were a misfortune indeed for such a dainty creature. 

 Driven to desperation he sought out Mother Nature and begged to be 

 retouched. This the good dame, being in a whimsical mood, consented 

 to do. She seized a brush from the nearest pot of paint, which happened 

 to be white, and gave her discontented subject, between fits of laughter, 

 sundry daubs and slashes with it, ten to a side, sending him forth at the 

 last a very — Harlequin. 



Seriously, it is difficult to detect the raison d'etre of this eccentric 

 dress; yet it is barely possible that it does afford its owner an exact pro- 

 tection among the turbulent, foam-flecked waters of its summer home. 

 Certain it is that its bizarre habit has made the bird as frequent a subject 

 for the taxidermist as its rarity has allowed. 



Rarity has indeed been the keynote of our apprehension of the Harle- 

 quin in the West. Yet it is not at all certain that the Harlequin is so very 

 rare, after all. Nesting, as it does, in the seclusion of the wildest mountain 

 streams, from the central Sierras north to the Arctic coast, it has at least 

 an enormous expanse of suitable nesting cover. So accurate, moreover, 

 is the bird's adaptation to these romantic conditions, that even the zealous 

 student, invading the bird's haunts in quest of information, may catch 

 only a fleeting glimpse of this haunting shape or a flash of its equally 

 fleeting progeny. One who has had such glimpses, and only such glimpses, 

 soon comes to feel that there is more on foot in Harlequindom than he has 



1826 



