252 
ANATID/E. 
lings thrive well upon the usual food of their, foster parent, but 
they always greatly enjoy a meal of small periwinkles or young 
crabs. It would have been highly instructive to have watched 
the gradual changes of plumage, and the progress made towards 
thorough domestication from time to time, but I could not get 
people to interest themselves in rearing them for me. Any 
which escaped the almost inevitable pot in the winter were 
allowed to stray away in the spring, the novelty of having tame 
'' Dunters ” soon ceasing to be cared for. 
THE KING DUCK. 
Somateria spectabilis. 
The occurrence of this species in Orkney has doubtless led to 
the conclusion that it is also an occasional visitor to Shetland, 
and accordingly erroneous statements to that effect have been 
frequently repeated. Although constantly upon the watch for 
many years, I have never obtained a glimpse of it, nor can I 
meet with any person who has shot it, or even seen it. Thomas 
Edmondston, without giving either date or authority, says 
(^‘ Zool.” 1844, p. 463) that it is “ sometimes seen.” Also in the 
“Zoologist” for 1848, p. 2188, one is recorded by Mr Dunn as 
occurring at Wensdale Voe, near Hoy, Shetland, on the 20th May 
1846 ; but this statement is scarcely sufficient. There is the 
well-known island called Hoy, in Orkney, and possibly a voe 
near it bearing the above name, but though there is a Wees- 
dale Voe in Shetland, there is neither a Wensdale Voe nor is 
tliere a Hoy. I am very doubtful, therefore, whether the King 
Duck has any right to a place in this work ; but I allow it to 
remain for the present, being unwilling to remove it from the 
list simply upon my own responsibility, observing Shetland so 
often referred to by our best ornithologists as a locality. 
