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A New Duck for Massachusetts, Nomonyx dominicus. — A fine adult 
male specimen of Nomonyx dominicus (Xinn.) was shot in a small pond 
near Malden, Mass., on August 27, 1889. It was brought to Messrs. 
Goodale and Frazar (93 Sudbury St., Boston) to be stuffed, and it was by 
the kindness of Mr. Goodale that I had the pleasure of examining it in the 
flesh. The color of the upper mandible was light blue with a narrow 
middle stripe of black. The feet were gray. This is, I believe, the first 
record for this species in Massachusetts, and the third for North America. 
(See Baird, Cassin, and Lawrence, B. N. A., p. 925 (i860) ; Cabot, Proc. 
Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., VI, p. 375, XIV, p. 154; and American Nat., V, p. 
441.) — Chas. B. Cory, Boston , Mass. 
Auk.vi. Oot., laee.p. J$6„ 
FROM EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS. 
T HE past winter has been the most remarkable one as 
to bird migrations in eastern Massachusetts that 
has ever been recorded, and many valuable notes have 
come under our notice. The first one worthy of men- 
tion was the taking of a masked duck (N . dnmimcMS) at 
Malden, Mass., Aug. 28 , 1839 . This is a bird common in 
Central America and the West Indies, but has been noted 
but twice previously in the United States — once in Wis- 
consin and again on Lake Champlain. The bird was a | 
male in full plumage, and the color, a cinnamon brown, 
covers almost the entire body. The circumstances under 
which it was taken suggests how many rare and strange j 
birds are killed each year by gunners all over the i 
country, and if every man who killed a strange bird j 
would get it into the hands of somebody well posted in 1 
ornithology there would be fifty valuable records made i 
where one is made to-day. This duck swam round in a 
little mud hole of less than an acre in extent and sur- 
rounded on three sides by houses, for over a week. At 
last a little chap of nine years, who had never fired a 
gun before, after constant pleading to be allowed to try, 
gained his father’s consent, and firing his first shot, for- 
tunately killed the bird. As it was his first, and quite 
handsome, the father concluded to have it set up, and so 
the bird was preserved. But how much oftener it must 
happen the other way, for as the. father said, if he had 
killed it himself he would have picked and eaten it. The 
bird is now in the collection of Chas. B. Cory of this 
city. 
Without doubt the food supply is the main controlling 
force in these unusual migrations and can be held almost 
entirely responsible for them. That the masked duck of 
so far north was probably owing to its getting mixed up 
with a flock of teal that were wintering in the south, 
and forgetting, or perhaps better say being weak in , its 
native instinct, it wandered north with the teal when 
they started for their summer home, and had very likely 
been wandering all over the Northern States until it 
finally met a captor. m.a, . 
For, & strm, April 24 , 1800 . p .268 
22 
