Dutcher, Long Island Birds. 
* 
Urinator arcticus. Black-throated Loon. —This is the first positive 
record of this species on Long Island, and also in New York State, and is 
! probably one of the very few specimens that have been taken in the 
United States. Mr. J. P. Giraud, Jr., does not give it in his ‘Birds of 
Long Island,’ published in 1844, although Mr. George N. Lawrence 
includes it in his list published in 1866, notwithstanding there is not a 
specimen in his collection, now in the American Museum of Natural 
History in New York City. In Volume X of the ‘Pacific Railroad 
Reports,’ published in 1858, Mr. Lawrence, who wrote the history of a 
portion of the water birds, says, “I have never been so fortunate as to 
meet with an American specimen of this bird.” In the ‘North American 
Birds,’ by Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway it is considered “very rare, and 
not even positively known to occur in the United States.” (Water Birds, 
Vol. II, p. 453.) The only United States record of which I know is of 
one shot in Sandusky Bay in 1880 (vide Wheaton’s ‘Birds of Ohio,’ p. 
565). It is with great pleasure, therefore, that I am able, through the 
kindness of M. J. Earley, Esq., of this city, to record the capture of a 
full-plumaged adult male. I append his letter. 
New York, May 16, 1893. 
Dear Sir: 
The bird which I sent to Mr. Wallace, taxidermist, to be 
mounted, and which you inform me is a Black-throated Diver, was killed 
by Gus Merritt, of City Island, on Saturday morning, April 29, between 
Sands Point lighthouse and Execution lighthouse. He was one of a 
party of young men who left City Island in the middle of the night to lie 
in line for Ducks between Sands-Point lighthouse and Execution light¬ 
house. At daylight on Saturday morning the bird flew from the east, 
' and was killed by him as it passed over his boat. I received it from Mr. 
Merritt a few days afterwards and sent it to Mr. Wallace where you saw it. 
Yours, vei-y truly, 
M. J. Earley. 
The specimen while yet in the flesh was brought to the attention of Mr. 
L. S. Foster by Mr. Wallace, who, after he had skinned it, gave me the 
| body for sexing. I found the sexual organs very fully developed and the 
bird very fat. Most of the skeleton has been preserved, and is nowin 
the osteolqgical collection of the American Museum of Natural History. 
Au._ 
July, 1893 p 265-66. 
