The Surf Scoter 



On a northern sand-spit, which is typical of hundreds lying between 

 us and Alaska, the White-winged Scoters are much hunted — not at all 

 for the excellence of their flesh, but because the supply is unfailing and 

 because of their interest as winged targets. The Scoters feed by hundreds 

 during the day in the harbor, but feel impelled to leave its uncertainties 

 toward nightfall and seek the safety of open water. The wiser birds 

 defer flight till well after dark, when law-abiding gunners have gone home. 

 During the passage of the sand-spit the unhappy birds are subjected to 

 a grilling fire, but none think of rising above danger. The path of the 

 first flock determines the point at which others will follow for the remain- 

 der of the evening. It is as though the word had been passed around that 

 the passage would be attempted at a certain point that night, and suc- 

 cessive platoons obey the general order in spite of persecution. The 

 flight is greatly quickened as the spit is approached, and should a flock 

 of experienced birds discover the gunner ahead of them, they do not 

 tower or swerve, but each in his course begins a frantic wriggling and 

 twisting, achieving thus a sort of cork-screw motion, which is really very 

 effective in upsetting the gunner's calculations. In spite of the grim 

 tragedy of the thing, it is laughable to see the birds perform in this way, 

 like schoolboys before the uplifted lash. 



No. 369 



Surf Scoter 



A. O. U. No. 166. Melanitta perspicillata (Linnaeus). 



Synonyms. — Surf Duck. Sea Coot. Squaw Duck, (etc., as in preceding 

 species). 



Description. — Adult male: A triangular patch on nape and a rounded patch 

 on forehead between eyes, shining white; remaining plumage glossy black, duller 

 below; frontal extension of feathers reaching nearly to nostril. Bill swollen at base 

 and singularly variegated in hue, pinkish white on sides, upon which a sharply defined 

 squarish patch of black, a line of brilliant carmine between this patch and base of bill, 

 culmen dark red shading into orange; under mandible orange and white; irides white; 

 feet orange-red, blackish on joints and webs. Adult female: Plumage sooty brown, 

 changing on underparts through grayish brown to silvery gray; no sign of white patches 

 of male, but two dull whitish areas on side of head, one buccal and one auricular (some- 

 times indistinct or even wanting). Bill blackish, scarcely swollen at base; frontal 

 feathering not so extended as in male; feet blackish tinged with orange-red. Immature 

 male: Like adult female, but patches on side of head more definitely white. Length 

 of adult: 457.2-533.4 (18.00-21.00); wing 228.6-254 (9.00-10.00); bill along gape 57.2- 

 63.5 (2.25-2.50) ; female averaging the smaller of these dimensions. 



Recognition Marks. — Crow size; white patches on forehead and nape of male; 

 whitish patches on sides of head of female and young male distinctive. 



1835 



