GOLDEN-EYE 301 



feathers. The sides and flanks are brown or gray-brown, but the wing, of course, retains the white 

 patch on the coverts and secondaries. Millais thinks that the central scapulars, back, tail-coverts, 

 tail, breast and abdomen, as well as the wing regions are moulted only once. This is certainly true as 

 regards the wings and tail, but whether it is equally true of the other regions, I am not prepared to 

 say. The authors of the Practical Hand-list (Witherby et al., 1919-22) agree nearly with Millais. 

 I have seen old males at Wenham in nearly full plumage in the middle of October, but this is un- 

 usual simply because these do not usually reach us until much later. Harper saw full-plumaged birds 

 near the Athabasca River as early as October 16 and 17; so that I have no doubt that the moult from 

 eclipse to nuptial takes place rather early in the autumn in many adult males. 



Young in Down (Plate 68) : Very characteristic of the genus and easily distinguished. The whole 

 top of the head to well below the eye, and a streak down the back of the neck sooty black. All the 

 face below this, as weU as the chin and throat pure white. A collar around the neck black, as well as 

 whole upper side, except for the prominent white scapular-, wing- and rump-spots. The abdomen 

 below the black neck region which shades into a gray on the upper breast, is pure glistening white, 

 without a trace of the sulphur yellow or buff color so characteristic of many species. It resembles 

 that of the Barrow's Golden-eye and differs only in size from the downy young of the Buffle-head. 



DISTRIBUTION 



The Golden-eye is one of the more northern of the holarctic species, extending throughout the three 

 continents of the northern hemisphere, but its habit of nesting in trees confines its range in summer to 

 the wooded regions of the north, beyond which it is only occasionally found as a straggler or as a 

 summer excursioner. 



Breeding Range 



In North America the breeding range extends as far north as Alaska. A specimen was taken on 

 St. George Island, Pribilovs, on May 6 (G. D. Hanna, 1920) but it is a rare bird on the coast of 

 Alaska, excepting at the mouth of the Yukon (Nelson, 1887) and farther south on North 

 Cook Inlet, where it was the commonest duck in the breeding season (Loring, 1902). America 

 In the interior it breeds abundantly throughout the basins of the Kuskokwim and Alaska 

 Yukon (Dall and Bannister, 1869; Nelson, 1887; Osgood, 1909; Dice, 1920). 



The breeding range in northwestern Canada extends nearly as far as the mouth of the MacKenzie, 

 where Stefansson (1913) saw a few in late June. R. MacFarlane (1908) is sure that he saw it at Fort ' 

 Anderson and the United States National Museum received specimens from there Northwest 

 (Preble, 1908). Ross (1862) speaks of seeing it on the MacKenzie as far north as the Canada 

 mouth, and Preble (1908) found it rather common in June, between Forts Norman and Good Hope. 

 Farther south the species has been found breeding on the Pelly Lakes (U.S. Biological Survey) and 

 about Fort Rae (Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, 1884) and has been seen by several explorers about 

 Great Slave Lake and along the Slave River (Preble, 1908; Seton, 1911). About the western end of 

 Lake Athabasca and along the lower Athabasca River it is especially abundant (Preble, 1908; Seton, 

 1911) and Mr. Francis Harper (MS.) found it nesting commonly in that region as well as at Egg Lake, 

 northeast of Fort Chipewyan. 



Although older writers have reported the Golden-eye breeding in southern British Columbia it is 

 very likely that they confounded the present species with Barrow's Golden-eye. Allan British 

 Brooks writes me that he has no absolute evidence of nesting except a female and two Columbia 

 half -grown young seen at Sumas Prairie in the coast district in August, 1895. It is probably rare or 

 absent from the more mountainous parts, where Barrow's is common. In northern Alberta it was 

 seen by Spreadborough (fide J. and J. M. Macoun, 1909) about Lesser Slave Lake and ... . 

 the upper Peace River, and as already remarked, it is an abundant breeding bird along 



