A GROUP OF SCOTERS. 
229 
food, altliough often seen in the markets. They gene- 
rally return to the arctic regions to breed ; but some, 
according to Temminck, remain in the temperate climates. 
In winter they are dispersed over the western and southern 
portions of Europe, but are not met with in America. 
The Surf Scoter {Oidemtapei^spiciUaf a), sometimes called 
the Black or Surf Duck, or Great-billed Scoter. 
The Velvet Scoter (0. fiisca), the Velvet or White- 
winged Black Duck ; the Black Diver, or Double Scoter. 
The Black or Common Scoter (0. nigra). 
The Scoters (genus Oidemid) are all remarkable for their 
black colour, and bills having a protuberance in front. 
They are birds of large size, having full and depressed 
bodies, moderately long, or thick short necks; large oblong 
compressed heads, rather flattened above. They inhabit 
the open sea or estuaries during the greater part of the 
year, feeding chiefly on bivalve shell-fish, for which they 
dive in shallow or moderately deep water. Their homes 
in summer and breeding-places are the arctic regions, 
where they build their loose bulky nests on the shores of 
the sea or lakes, or in marshes, lining them with down ; 
their eggs are numerous and white. 
All the Scoters swim and dive with ease, and remain 
long under the water ; they are gregarious, except in the 
breeding season, and even then the males which have left 
the females keep together in flocks. 
Of the above-named British species, the first is much 
the rarest, only two or three specimens having, as far as 
we know, been killed in this country, although small flocks 
are said to have been seen in and about the Orkney Isles. 
It has a plumage of deep black glossed with blue, with a 
patch of white on the top of the head, and another on the 
hind neck ; the feet and part of the curiously- shaped bill 
are flesh-coloured. Audubon describes this species as 
abundant in winter on the eastern coasts of America, ex- 
tending as far southward as the mouth of the Mississippi, 
In Labrador he found a few in summer, and came upon a 
female sitting upon her eggs. The term perspicillatay or 
spectacled, applied to this bird by some naturalists, has 
