STELLER'S EIDEE. 



SOMATERIA STELLERI {Pall). 



Anas stelleri, Pallas, Spic. Zool. fasc. vi. p. 35 (1769). 

 Anas dispar, Naum. xii. p. 240. 

 Stelleria dispar, Macg. v. p. 164. 



Somateria stelleri, Yarr. ed. 4, iv. p. 468 ; Dresser, vi. p. 469. 

 Steller's Ente, Scheck-Ente, German. 



Of this handsome species I know nothing whatever 

 except from books, and I imagine that a great majority 

 of my fellow-ornithologists are in the same position 

 with regard to it. I can only find two records of its 

 occurrence in England, or, indeed, anywhere else in the 

 United Kingdom. These captures are stated to have 

 taken place, respectively, in February 1830, at Caistor 

 in Norfolk, and in August 1845 at Filey Brigg, on the 

 coast of Yorkshire. The former bird is preserved in the 

 Norwich Museum, and the latter is in the possession of 

 Lord Scarsdale. This species visits the Varanger Fjord 

 more or less regularly in the winter, and occasionally 

 breeds upon the Norwegian shore of that gulf and also 

 in Russian Finmark. Von Middendorff found it abun- 

 dant and breeding upon the " tundras " of the Taimyr 



