64 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Aug. 18, 1887. 



THE PIED DUCK. 



Canvptolaimus labradorius. 



BY R. M. SHUFELDT, C. St. Z. S. } ETC. 



NOT long ago (January, 1886) the writer of the present 

 article published in the Century Magazine an article 

 entitled "Feathered Forms of Other Days," wherein, after 

 dwelling upon the ancestry of birds now so clearly re- 

 vealed to us through the discovery of the remains of extinct 

 avian, avireptilian and reptilian forms, he came to con- 

 sider the list of those birds in different parts of the world 

 which have been exterminated, through one means or 

 another, within comparatively recent times. Among 

 these latter no little attention was paid to the history of 

 the subject of the present article, the pied, or Labrador 

 duck; and in my Century essay a figure was given of this 

 interesting bird. In some particulars, however, that 

 illustration was not quite as satisfactory as I should hiked 

 to have had it; but that is neither here nor there so far as 

 our present purpose is concerned. 



For more than a year after the article I refer to ap- 

 peared, I received communications from various sources, 

 and often of an exceedingly interesting character, which, 

 in the main, questioned the propriety of including the 

 pied duck among those birds now known to be absolutely 



only include the skin and feathers, but all the structural^ 

 characters besides! I have no doubt that a good pair of 

 these birds, adult specimens in perfect plumage, would 

 command a price of $800 at the present writing. 



A pied duck was shot in Halifax harbor in 1852, and I 

 am unfamiliar with any record that is of later date. 

 Audubon painted his pair in his admirable figures of the 

 plate to his work from two he had had presented him by 

 the "Honorable Daniel "Webster, of Boston, who killed 

 them him elf on the Vineyard Islands, on the coast of 

 Massachusetts." 



Granting that a few of these birds are still in existence, 

 a male specimen may be known by having length of about 

 20in. , measured to the end of the tail, and to the end of 

 the claws 22-£in., and to the end of the wings only 18£in. 

 Alar extent, 30in. ; so it will be seen that it is an unusu- 

 ally large due k. Audubon's specimen weighed lib. 14-£oz., 

 and he tells us that in it the "bill with the basal space 

 between the nostrils running into a rounded point in the 

 middle, pale grayish-blue; the sides of the base and the 

 edges of both mandibles for two-thirds of their length, 

 dull pale orange, the rest of the bill black. Iris reddish 

 hazel. Feet light grayish-blue, webs and claws dusky. 

 Head and upper half of neck white, excepting an elon- 

 gated black patch on the top of the head and nape. Below 

 the middle of the neck is a black ring, anteriorly is a broad 

 band of white, passing backward on each side, so as to in- 

 clude the scapulars. All the under parts black, except- 

 ing the axillaries and lower wing coverts. Upper wing 



WHIP SCORPION AND GILA MONSTER. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



In your issue of July 28 Dr. E. W. Shufeldt gives your 

 readers an interesting sketch of what he calls the whip- 

 tailed scorpion. In southern Arizona, where I first saw 

 this creature, nearly thirty years ago, the natives called 

 it " Venegraea," as near as I can come to it, and I found 

 it quite common in the entire southern portion of the Ter- 

 ritory, especially in the neighborhood of old Fort Buch- 

 anan (subsequently renamed Camp Crittenden), where 

 one had only to turn over a few old logs or loose stones 

 to find one or more of these interesting creatures. My 

 sole object in writing this is to place on record at least 

 one case in which the bite of this insect proved fatal. In 

 one of the numerous expeditions after the Apache Indians 

 in that Territory in 1858, the company to which I belonged 

 at the time, D Troop, First Dragoons, captured among 

 other things a small Indian boy, at the time probably six 

 years old. This youngster, while tractable enough in 

 most things could not be induced to sleep under a roof, 



I and preferred to make his bed in an old tent in which a 



j number of packing boxes were stored. He always slept 

 on the ground. The boy took a fancy to me, and one 



I morning he came and tried by pointing to make me 

 understand that something had bitten him on the head, 

 and that it hurt him very much. On examining the 



I place, right in front of and a little above the ear, I noticed 

 that he certainly had been bitten by something; the 



I wounds exuded a yellowish serum, and I supposed at 



THE PIED DUCK (Camptolaimus labradorius). Male; Winter Plumage. 



extinct. Some told me that they had shot specimens 

 within five years, and others bad seen it in the flesh even 

 within a more recent date than that, while one corre- 

 spondent knew the duck perfectly, had seen one within a 

 month in a market, and would soon be able to send me a 

 pair in alcohol to be used as anatomical material! 



It is needless to add, however, that notwithstanding the 

 intention of my good correspondents, I have not up to tb.e 

 present writing been overburdened with specimens of that 

 particular duck. In one or two instances, I must confess, 

 the descriptions sent me, sometimes by old duck hunters, 

 of birds they had recently shot as pied ducks, were very 

 accurate indeed, and I was more than inclined to believe 

 that a bona fide capture had been made. And in view of 

 these facts, and inasmuch as the American Ornithologists' 

 Union still keep this duck on our Check List as "now ex- 

 tremely rare, and perhaps extinct," I believe another 

 word about it here will hardly be considered untimelv. 



There is before me my copy of Audubon's figure of this 

 duck, a splendid colored plate, and some three or four 

 years ago, Mr. Smiley, the talented photographer of the 

 U. S. National Museum, made me a fine photograph of 

 the mounted specimen of the male pied duck in the col- 

 lections of the Smithsonian Institution. This is also at 

 my hand, and from the two sources in question I have 

 ventured to produce a sketch of the bird myself to illus- 

 trate what we have to say here in regard to him, but 

 chiefly to place before sportsmen a figure of the bird 

 which cannot be easily mistaken, and which will serve as 

 a guide in diagnosis in case a specimen be taken upon any 

 of their expeditions. For we will all agree that it would 

 be a shame to pluck a pair of these ducks for the table 

 when not long ago a pair of skins sold in London for $ 00 

 cash — yes, only the skins and feathers, to say nothing of 

 what a pair of alcoholics might have brought, which not 



coverts and secondary quills white, some of the inner 

 quills with a narrow external black margin ; alula, pri- 

 mary coverts, and primary quills, brownish-black. Tail 

 [14 tapering feathers] brownish-black, tinged with gray, 

 th=3 shafts black; upper tail coverts dusky, minutely dotted 

 with reddish-brown." The female is smaller than the 

 male, and in general coloration is of a brownish-gray, 

 with bill, feet, etc., as in the drake; it has, however, 

 white on the sides of its forehead, and some seven or 

 eight of the secondaries of the wing likewise. The re- 

 mainder of the wings and the tail as in the male; so if a 

 male bird happened to be collected, any such appearing 

 companion taken with it, ought surely to be preserved 

 and with fully as much care. 



These birds ought to be carefully looked for during the 

 winter season from Labrador to 'the southern coasts of 

 New Jersey; they have never, I believe, been taken in the 

 interior. 



If a specimen in full plumage is captured, there is no 

 reason why it should not furnish, not only a first-class 

 skin, but the entire skeleton and soft parts besides. It 

 should as soon as possible be committed to a jar contain- 

 ing suffi ient pure, clear alcohol to cover it completely, 

 when it can be converted into the aforesaid material just 

 so soon as it con- es into the hands of a skilled preparateur, 

 and one who fully realizes the great value of the speci- 

 men upon which he may be called to operate. 



Albino Hedgehog.— Methuen, Mass.— Mr. C. F. Rich- 

 ardson asked in your issue of June 7 if any of us had ever 

 seen white hedgehogs. Last September I was in the town 

 of Sutton, N. H. Scott Littleade, of that town, had two 

 of them alive, and with them a white woodchuck or 

 ground hog.— C. Q. C. 



first that it was the bite of a tarantula, for tarantulas were 

 very common also. The boy was at once taken to the 

 hospital, which was then in charge of Asst. Surgeon B. J. 

 D. Sroin, now Lieut.-Col. and Surgeon U. S. Army. The 

 doctor was noted and beloved by the men of that command 

 for his skillful treatment and the tender care bestowed 

 on all his patients, and he had his hands full in that un- 

 healthy place. The writer himself would in all proba- 

 bility have long ago joined the great majority had he 

 fallen in less careful hands than those of genial Dr. Sroin. 

 But to come back — everything that could be done for the 

 Indian boy was done, but notwithstanding he steadily 

 grew worse, his head swelled up to an enormous siz , and 

 after lingering for a few weeks or so (as nearly as I can 

 remember) he died. At the suggestion of Dr. Sroin the 

 tent in which the boy slept was thoroughly searched at 

 the time, and some half a dozen or more fully grown 

 insects of this species were found under the boxes, and 

 one of these was nearly dead when found, probably in- 

 jured by the boy when it bit him. This is the only in- 

 stance coming under my observation. 



Again in your issue of August 4 the indefatigable Dr. 

 Shufeldt furnishes your readers with a most inter esting 

 article and an excellent drawing of the little known Gila 

 monster (H. suspectum), a reptile met with by me on 

 several occasions during my service in southern Arizona. 

 Perhaps I may be able to add a little to the Doctor's ac- 

 count, which 'may be interesting to some of your readers. 

 While encamped on the present site of Fort Lowell, Ari- 

 zona, seven miles from Tucson, on the Rillotto Creek, 

 during the summer of 1872, one of these lizards took up 

 its resid nee under a board floor in my tent. How long 

 it may have been there before it was discovered I don't 

 know, but as I did not consider it a desirable neighbor it 

 did not stay there long after I located it, and the speci- 



