The Wigeon 39 
the natives there, though well acquainted with most of the ducks, did not seem 
to know the Pintail. 
In the Faroe Islands the Wigeon is a scarce, but regular, visitor, and the 
late Mr. H. Miiller, who had an unrivalled acquaintance with the birds of 
those islands, told me that a few pairs stay and breed there every year. In 
Norway the Wigeon is common in winter at the mouths of the fiords, and 
breeds in small numbers along the whole of the east coast, becoming more 
numerous in northern latitudes towards the Russian frontier. It also breeds 
in large numbers in Northern Sweden, Lapland, Finland, and Northern 
Russia, whilst Germany may be regarded as the southern limit of its breeding 
range. It is met with in small numbers in India, according to Dr. Jerdon, 
but becomes more numerous in Kashmir and the Central Asian lakes. Dr. 
Severtzoff says that it is met with throughout Siberia to Kamtschatka, and 
according to Mr. Howard Saunders it occurs as far south as Borneo, and a 
specimen has even been taken in the Marshall group, Polynesia. Dr. Elliott 
Coues has shown that the Wigeon obtained in the Prybilov Islands, off 
the north-west coast of Alaska, is not the American Wigeon, but Mareca 
Penelope. 
In Great Britain the Wigeon is a common winter visitant, usually arriving 
in September and departing in March and April. It is specially numerous in 
the east of England, on the Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Northumberland 
coasts. In the south it is fairly common as far west as Devonshire ; but on 
the west coast it is scarcer, as feeding grounds are fewer and occur at greater 
intervals. Near the Scottish border it again becomes common. In a few 
isolated instances, Wigeon have stayed and bred in various parts of England, 
and of late years no one has been more successful than Mr. W. H. St. Quintin, 
of Scampston Hall, in establishing this beautiful duck. In May, 1900, I saw 
several pairs of wild birds nesting there. These are mostly the descendants 
of pinioned birds, and Mr. St. Quintin has found that after the initial difficulty 
of getting the pinioned birds to breed has been overcome, their free-flying 
descendants will mate and form a colony in the places where they were born. 
