BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
THE AMERICAN BLUE-WINGED TEAL. 
Querquedula discors (Linnaeus). 
Once recorded. 
Only two records of the occurrence in Europe of the American 
Blue-winged Teal are mentioned by Howard Saunders m 
his Manual of British Birds, 1899 ; one, an adult male shot 
near Saby, in Denmark, about the middle of April, 1886, 
and the other obtained in Dumfriesshire in 1858. Another 
example has since been recorded as having been obtained 
in Cheshire. It was shot about the middle of the last 
century on the Dee estuary, and is considered by Messrs. 
Coward and Oldham to have been a genuine visitor from 
America.* ^ . , . 
Howard Saunders thus refers to the Dumfriesshire speci- 
men : " In the Naturalist, VHI. (1858), p. 168, Mr. W. G. 
Gibson, writing from Dumfries, says, without naming any 
month : ' a specimen of the Blue-winged Teal (Anas discors) 
was shot here a few weeks ago.' This bird, erroneously 
stated by the late Robert Gray to have been killed m January, 
1863, afterwards passed into the collection of the late feir 
WiUiam Jardine, and was subsequently acquired by the 
Edinburgh Museum; it is a male and undoubtedly genuine, t 
It may be well here to quote Robert Gray's reference 
in extenso : " A specimen of this North American Teal was 
shot by the late Mr. Shaw, of Drumlanrig, on the Nith, m 
Dumfriesshire, in January, 1863. Sir WiUiam Jardine in 
whose coUection the bird is now preserved, informs me that 
he happened to be at Drumlanrig, and called to see Mr. 
Shaw shortly before his death, when he was told by him 
that he had shot the Duck and sent it to WiUiam Hastings, 
* Vert. Fauna Cheshire, Vol. I., p. 332. 
t Man. Brit. Birds, 1899, p. 434. 
