THE LONG-TAILED, OR NORTHERN HARELD. 15!) 
shores, it becomes more frequent, and at the mouth 
of the Firth of Forth a limited number may gene- 
rally be seen. Northward still, and around the more 
distant is'cs, we believe it is common, and we have 
* several times received a considerable package of 
them at a time, as if they were at least the birds 
most easily procured. On the Irish coasts a few 
specimens are also sometimes obtained. On the 
coasts of Europe it is met with as a straggling spe- 
cies, diminishing southward; and though included 
among the birds of Italy, its introduction there rests, 
we believe, on one or two immature birds only 
having been procured ; but according to the con- 
tinental ornithologists, it sometimes visits the large 
lakes, both of Germany and Switzerland. In the 
Old "World its breeding stations are Norway, Den- 
mark, Sweden, Iceland, &c., on the banks of the 
inland lakes, as we learn from the observations of 
Ilewitson, Atkinson, Dann, and Proctor. In the 
New World it is recorded by all the American 
ornithologists, and also by our arctic travellers. 
Audubon found it breeding in Labrador by the 
fresh-water lakes. He considers that it ranges as 
far south as Texas, and he also found it at the 
mouth of the Columbia river, but thinks that it 
is not met with in the “ fresh-water courses,” and 
that authors who stato having seen it there, have 
mistaken the pintail for it, which is abundant in 
such localities. 
There is an extraordinary variation in the summer 
and winter dress of this bird. In a specimen pro- 
cured in summer by one of the whaling vessels, the 
