close to the surface,, but rising and falling and turning this 
way and that, so we were able to see both its back and 
breast. In the dull light of a cloudy day we were unable, 
even with 8-power binoculars, to detect any colors or mark- 
ings, and the duck looked uniformly dull gray or black. Its 
size, shape and method of flight excluded at once the Ameri¬ 
can Scoter and the Black Duck. I am fairly familiar with 
the Harlequin Duck on the Labrador coast. The female and 
young look uniformly dark above and below and on the 
wings, with the exception of a variable amount of white 
near the eye, and this it is often difficult to see on a bird 
in flight. 
Knight, in “The Birds of Maine,” said of the Harlequin, 
in 1908: “They were formerly common along the coast from 
November until March and April, but now occur only in 
the extreme winter months in limited numbers among the 
outer surf-beaten ledges and islands of our Eastern coast. 
It is possible the Harlequin has been frequenting this 
outlying Essex County rock. 
Charles W. Townsend, M. D. 
A WINTER AFTERNOON AT NAHANT. 
The afternoon of January 18, 1922, was dull and squally, 
and although the temperature was not much below freezing 
there was a penetrating northwest wind, which ruthlessly 
sought the less protected parts of the body. With two 
fellow-members of the Bird Club, both immune to such 
weather when there is a prospect of meeting either new or 
old bird friends, I started for Nahant. 
Off shore from Red Rock, which is situated in Lynn not 
far from the Nahant line, we saw two male Barrow’s 
Golden-eyes. These were first reported in that locality on 
January 14th, by R. B. Mackintosh. There were many 
female Golden-eyes in the vicinity, and it seems fair to 
assume that some of them were Barrow’s. 
We stopped at Little Nahant and from the verandas of 
the closed summer cottages, watched to our hearts’ content 
54 
