148 Brewer on the Rocky Mountain Golden-eye. 
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOLDEN-EYE (BU CEP HA LA 
ISLANDICA.) 
BY T. M. BREWER. 
It appears to be a somewhat remarkable fact that this form of 
Golden-eye, now ascertained to be a species so almost exclusively 
North American, shonld have been so little known to our earlier 
ornithological writers; and it is hardly less surprising, — when we 
call to mind that nearly half a century ago Dr. Richardson, in 
“Fauna Boreali-Americana,” and only three years afterwards Mr. 
Nuttall (Water Birds, p. 444), assigned our Rocky Mountain region 
as the habitat of this species during its season of reproduction, — that 
its true character and history and geographical abode should have 
been so imperfectly understood up to the present time. In the 
ninth volume of the “ Pacific Railroad Reports” its habitat is given 
as, — “ Iceland and northern parts of America. In winter not rare 
on the St. Lawrence.” In the “ Key to North American Birds,” we 
read : “ Arctic America to the N. States in winter, not common. 
Also N. Europe.” In the “Birds of the Northwest,” while it is 
said to “probably breed in the Rocky Mountains of the United 
States,” we also find it stated to be “ the most northerly species of 
the genus, having apparently a circumpolar distribution, breeding 
only 1 in high latitudes, and penetrating but a limited distance south 
in winter.” The same writer, in “ Field-Notes on the Birds of 
Montana,” etc., was “ greatly interested ” to find this species “ breed- 
ing in the Rocky Mountains,” and mentions it as “ the first recorded 
instance of the occurrence of the species, during the breeding 
season, in the United States.” 
This species entirely escaped the notice of Wilson. It is only 
mentioned, or referred to, by Bonaparte as a European species, and 
although given by Richardson and Nuttall, was overlooked by 
Audubon, or only regarded as a curious variety of the common 
Golden-eye. Nuttall refers to it as the “Rocky Mountain Golden- 
eye,” a very appropriate name, mentions its breeding in these 
mountains, and as having the same habits as the common species. 
As he makes no reference to Richardson, it is probable that what 
he states is based on his own observations. 
