STELLEK’S EIDER
SOMATERIA STE L LE R I (Pall.).
Anas stelleri, Pallas, Spic. Zool. fasc. vi. p. 35 (1769).
Anas dispar, Naum. xii. p. 240.
Stelleria dispar, Macg. v. p. 164.
Somateria stelleri, Yarr. ed. 4, iv. p. 468; Dresser, vi. p. 469.
Steller’s Ente, Scheck-Ente, German.
Of this handsome species I know nothing whatever
except from books, and I imagine that a great majority
of my fellow-ornithologists are in the same position
with regard to it. I can only find two records of its
occurrence in England, or, indeed, anywhere else in the
United Kingdom. These captures are stated to have
taken place, respectively, in February 1830, at Caistor
in Norfolk, and in August 1845 at Filey Brigg, on the
coast of Yorkshire. The former bird is preserved in the
Norwich Museum, and the latter is in the possession of
Lord Scarsdale. This species visits the Varanger Fjord
more or less regularly in the winter, and occasionally
breeds upon the Norwegian shore of that gulf and also
in Russian Finmark. Yon Middendorff found it abundant
and breeding upon the “ tundras ” of the Taimyr