Vol. XI 
1S94 
1 
Ge?ieral Notes. 
323 
The Food of Wild Ducks. — In December, 1893, Mr. William Dutcher 
brought to me the stomach contents of a Harlequin Duck ( Histrionicus 
histrionicus') shot at Montauk Point, Long Island, about the 3rd of the 
month. An examination of the material showed what an industrious 
collector the bird must have been, for it had in its crop remains of no less 
than three individuals of the small mud crab of our coast, Panopeus 
depress a Smith, one carapace being almost entire; besides remains of 
some other forms of Crustaceans. Of the little shell Columbella lunata 
(Astyris lunata of the Fish Com. Reports), there were no less than 39 
individuals represented, besides several small Littorinas. This shell is 
seldom more than one-sixth of an inch long, and is usually quite rare on 
our shores. It could only have been obtained in such numbers by a sort 
of sifting of the bottom mud of the bays by the Duck, and indicates how 
carefully the process had been carried on in order to obtain so small an 
article of food. 
The contents of the crop of an Eider Duck ( Somateria dresseri ) taken 
by Mr. Dutcher at Montauk Point, L. I., on March 25, 1894, Contained 
the remains of five right claws of Cancer irroratus , our common sand 
crab, showing that he had dined sumptuously on this species on several 
occasions. The last dinner consisted of an individual entire, a small 
female burdened with a large quantity of eggs under the flipper, making 
an object nearly two inches by one and three-eighths, and almost an inch 
thick, which he must have taken into his crop at a single gulp, without 
even disturbing a limb. 
From the stomach of a King Eider ( Somateria shectab ibis ') the contents 
of which Mr. Dutcher sent, I find the objects so thoroughly comminuted 
that but little can be identified. The hand and figure of Cancer irroratus , 
young shells of Mytilus edulis, and a young shell of Lunatia heros Sav, 
which still retains the horny operculum, is all that can be recognized. 
Two gizzards of wild Ducks, the contents very much comminuted, 
furnish, one of them, the almost entire carapace of Carcinus amcenus Linn, 
sp. (= Cancer granulatus Say,) measuring about three-fourths of an inch 
in diameter, the limbs all removed and the whole badly macerated. 
There were also fragments of Cancer irroratus , our common sand crab, 
and quite a quantity of young mussles {Mytilus edulis) none of which 
measured more than one-half an inch in length. A second gizzard gave 
evidence of three or four specimens of the small mud crab, Panopeus 
depressus, with many fragments of mussle shells, but nothing else which 
could be determined. 
There is nothing among these remains which would indicate that the 
birds had been feeding at different localities within a few days of the time 
they were shot. On the contrary all the contents of their crops and 
gizzards would show that their food had been for some days obtained in 
or near our own waters, or at least within the limits of our own coastal 
fauna, and that crustaceans form a very large percentage of their food 
during the spring months of the year. — R. P. Whitfield, American 
Museum of Natural History , New Pork City. 
Auk XI. Oct. 1804 p. 823 
1918. King Duck on the Great Lakes. By Dr. E. Sterling. Tbid . „ 
Auk 27. July- 1910 p. 
