Identifier: britishgamebirds00morr (find matches)
Title: British game birds and wildfowl
Year: 1855 (1850s)
Authors: Morris, Beverley Robinson Fawcett, Benjamin, 1808-1893, engraver
Subjects: Game and game-birds Birds Birds
Publisher: London : Groombridge and Sons ...
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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nderwater. The food of the Scoter consists entirely of shell-fish. The stomach of one examinedby Mr. T. Allis, of York, contained a few whole middle-sized shells of Tellina soliclula;a number of fragments of the same, and broken Cardium edule, or common cockle. The nest is said to be formed of grass or sedge, and is lined with the birds owndown. The eggs are six in number, of a pale greenish buff colour. They measure one inchand a half in length, by one inch and three-quarters in breadth. When incubation has commenced, the males assemble in large flocks, and keep bythemselves till the autumn. In the adult male, the bill is black; except a line of reddish yellow on the centreof the upper mandible. Irides, dark hazel. The whole of the plumage is black, withpurple reflections on the head and neck. Legs and feet, dusky black. In the female, the upper parts are brownish black; the under parts lighter. Legsand feet, greenish brown; membranes, nearly black. The length is about twenty inches.
Text Appearing After Image:
STJEF SCOTEE. Oidemia perspicillata, .... Fleming. Anas perspicillata, ..... Linn^tjs. Canard marchand, .... Temmisce:. Oidemia. Oidema—A swelling; as if referring to the inflated base of the bill. Perspicillata. Quasre, Perspicio—To see plainly; on account of the distinctness of the species. This is an extremely rare bird in this country; in England one was procured in arecent state, by Mr. Bartlett, of London, in, we believe, 1838; and in the winter of1845, a mutilated specimen was found by W. P. Cocks, Esq., on the beach near theMagazine, Pendennis Castle, Falmouth, as recorded in The Naturalist for 1851.Specimens occasionally occur in Orkney and Shetland; and with respect to the latterislands, Mr. Eobert Dunn, of Helister, thus writes in the Zoologist, for 1848:—Lastsummer, in June, as I was collecting through the north part of Shetland, I observed avery rare British visitor, namely a fine male specimen of the Surf Scoter, in EonasYoe, in company with some Ked-breasted Merga

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