SURE SCOTER,
ÄHas penpüülatu,
Oidemia pcrsfiicü/afa.
TEMMINCK.
FLEMING. SELBY.
Anas—A Duck. Perspicillaia—, ?
THE Surf Scoter belongs to the cold north, but the Arctic winter
is too severe even for it, and it makes its way southwards at that
season, and cornea down so far as Florida, by Labrador, the Gulf of
St. Lawrence, Hudson's Bay, Baffin's Bay, Newfoundland, and the
other immediate districts of the American continent.
I n Europe it occurs on the Norwegian and Swedish coasts; and
one, a female, was found on the Rhine. Individuals have also occurred
in Switzerland and France.
I n Cornwall one was found near Pendennis Castle, Falmouth, in
the winter of 1845; another was captured at Scilly, on the 35th. of
September, 1865,
In Scotland an individual was shot in Musselburgh Bay, in the
spring of 1852. Others also on the Frith of Forth; and in ' The
Naturalist,' old series, volume iii., page 420, mention is made of the
occurrence of a specimen. It has also occurred in Caithness.
I n Shetland one was seen in Rona's Voe, by Mr. Robert Dunn,
in June, 184T. In Orkney these birds appear in small flocks in the
sounds during winter.
In Ireland a S2iecimen was obtained near Belfast.
The Surf Scoter in summer resorts to the mouths of rivers, and
fresh-water lakes in the neighbourhood of the sea, but this only for
the purpose of rearing its young, for at. other times, as its name conveys,
it is a bird of the sea. and delights to float among the heaviest
breakers of the ' rolling deep/ over which it makes its way with
buoyant case. The water of Stokes Bay has been seen almost covered
with them.