NOTES AND QUERIES. 143 



and differing from Dresser's Eider and the plate of the Pacific Eider 

 which accompanies Gray's original description of the species. The 

 specimen was exhibited at a meeting of the British Ornithologists' 

 Club on Jan. 18th (vide Bulletin of the B. 0. C. cxii. p. 32). — Feed 

 Stubbs (Oldham). 



Pacific Eider in Orkney (ante, p. 74). — In the February number of 

 'Knowledge' I see the Pacific Eider (Somateria v -nigrum) mentioned 

 as having been shot at Scarborough, Yorkshire, on Dec. 16th, 1904, the 

 same mistake occurring in ' Nature.' In the 'Field' of Feb. 18th I 

 gave the full history of the specimen, which was not shot in England 

 at all, but in Orkney. It is as follows : — It was shot by George 

 Sutherland, my assistant boatman, on Dec. 14th, off the island of 

 Graemeay, near Stromness, before my arrival in the islands. He sent 

 it with some other Eiders to a taxidermist in Scarborough, who wrote 

 to young Sutherland, and told him that he could not pay him the 

 usual price for it as it was such a poor specimen, and could therefore 

 give him only half a crown for it ! The buyer sold it to the Oldham 

 Natural History Society as a Common Eider, and the secretary of this 

 Society sent it up to South Kensington, where it was identified as 

 a Pacific Eider. In January and February, 1904, I was also wild- 

 fowling in Orkney, and Sutherland senior, uncle of the above youth, 

 described a bird which he had shot some years ago, which I took to be 

 an American Eider, and this year he told me that this particular bird 

 was identical in all respects with the one shot by his nephew ; so the 

 specie3 has occurred before in Great Britain, and the new specimen is 

 not the first occurrence in Europe. On Feb. 22nd we saw, in the Bay 

 of Ireland, near Stromness, a very peculiar female Eider, a single bird, 

 which we hit three times, but failed to bag. She was much smaller 

 than the Common Eider, and was very light coloured, the head 

 appearing to be almost white. I had my glass on her for nearly half 

 a hour before we came up to her. as the wind had dropped completely, 

 and could not make her out at all ; neither could either of my boatmen, 

 the Sutherlands, who are professional fowlers, and have shot hundreds 

 of Eiders. What was she ? is it possible that she was the widow of 

 the late lamented Pacific Eider drake ? — H. W. Kobinson (Lansdowne 

 House, Lancaster). 



Smew (Mergus albellus) in Cheshire. — On March 5th, when with 

 a friend I was watching the wildfowl on Oulton Mere, we detected a 

 Smew among a party of Pochards and Tufted Ducks. The bird at a 

 distance looked like one of the smaller Grebes, for it moved at a great 

 pace through the water, swimming so low that its shoulders were often 



