Long-tailed Duck 119 
the Adriatic (Saunders). It also winters in the Caspian (Buturlin). It is not recorded from 
Spain or Portugal, but has occurred in the south of France (Ntmes and Hy^res ; Dresser's 
Birds of Europe, p. 620). 
Italy. — It occurs fairly regularly on the Venetian estuary, where over 100 were killed in 
October-November 1887, and was also common in 1891 and 1896, when Comte Ninni ob- 
tained thirteen in one day. Only accidental in the rest of Italy, in such districts as 
Lombardy, Ferrara, Liguria, Tuscany, Apulia (Arrigoni, Manuale). In Austro-Hungary it 
occurs in winter on the principal lakes and on the Danube (L. Velencze, &c.), and has once 
been taken in Herzegovina (Kadich). Not recorded from the Black Sea except as a rare 
visitor to Dobrogea (Dombrowski), but winters in the Caspian (Baku, Mdndtries, Cat. 
Raisonne). Azores [Nov. Zool., xii. p. 109). 
Asia. — It occurs in winter from the Caspian to Lake Baikal. Also on the coasts of 
China (Taku, Swinhoe, P.Z.S., 1871, p. 419). And Japan [Ibis, 1877, p. 147 ; Birds of the 
Jap. Empire, p. 252). Probably also northwards along the coasts of Saghalien and Ockotsch 
to the ice limit. 
N. America. — Common in winter along the coasts of southern Labrador and the south 
and west coasts of Newfoundland, where I have seen large numbers in Fortune and Placentia 
Bays. On the east side of the continent it winters in large numbers from the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence to North Carolina and the Great Lakes. It is found south to lat. 37° (Saunders) 
and is only of casual occurrence in Florida {Auk, 1888, p. 319); Louisiana, S. Carolina 
{Auk, 1888, p. 203), and in Gulf of Mexico (Hantzsch). On the western side it winters in 
the Aleutian Islands and along the outside reefs of Alaska. Very abundant in British 
Columbia, Washington, and the N. coast of California in winter, but becoming scarce in 
the south. Numbers of Long-tailed Ducks winter in West Greenland. 
Habits. — Long-tailed Ducks leave their northern homes on the first signs of rough 
weather in October, at first in small parties, but later in larger numbers. The southern 
migration is, as a rule, gradual, but continuous throughout late October and November. It 
is rare to see more than a few small parties in October, but by the end of November large 
flocks assemble in the Baltic numbering from three to five hundred, whilst in the British 
Isles, especially on the north-east of Scotland, an equal number may be found, but not in 
such close flocks. On Continental coasts the pressure of ice forces these birds to assemble 
in immense numbers about the mouths of rivers, but with us the conditions are seldom so 
severe in our islands as to make them leave their regular winter bays and voes. Their 
advent from November to February, to the freshwater lakes and rivers of Central 
Europe, is therefore more a matter of necessity than choice. With us they seldom 
leave the sea, and I have only seen them in brackish waters on rare occasions, and then in 
spring when about to leave for the summer. In North America, with a free seaboard on 
either coast they keep just below the ice limit on the eastern side, but go much further south 
on the west, occurring in large numbers on the coasts of S. British Columbia, Washington, 
and N. California, where the winter conditions are very mild. 
It is somewhat curious that a bird like the Long-tailed Duck, which is found, as a rule, 
in summer on fresh water, should in the winter be so devoted to the sea, but no doubt 
the nature of their favourite food, molluscs and shell-fish of all kinds, is responsible for 
this, and where these are to be obtained they show no disposition to roam, being found day 
