An Additional Specimen of the Labrador Duck

These are no doubt two of the three birds referred to by Widmann in ' Birds of Missouri ' 1907, p. 26, but the bird is sufficiently rare in the UIfited States to have the location of the specimens definitely recorded.--J.H. FL•MING, Toronto, Ont.Caspian Tern (Sterna caspia) in Minnesota.--OnSept. 29, 1911, Mr. Dan.Schmid, keeper of Big Island Park, shot an adult male and a juvenal female from • flock of eight Caspian Terns on Lake Minnetonka.Both specimens were in good plumage, and were made into skins.The male is now in my collection.This is the first time that I have met with this species in this State.--ALBmRTLANO, Excelsior, Minnesota.The Brown Pelican on Long Island.--OnMay 26, 1912, we observed a Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), feeding around the shoals at the western end of Oak Isla•d beach.When first seen• at long range, we decided that it was a'stick, with a white top.Five minutes later, to our intense surprise, the stick flew away, and we knew at once it was a Brown Pelican.The great size, the long bill and pouch• the whitish crown and the slow sailing flight as it flapped away majestically over the water were unmistakable with the naked eye• not to mention 9 x binoculars.The bird settled on another sand-bar, and while preeifing its feathers, we approached to witlfin 150 yards.For the next hour and a half the bird flew from bar to bar, as the tide rose, occasionally catching a fish• by scooping it up with its lower mandible, but for the most part sitting on a bar, preening its feathers, until the tide flushed it off, when it would fly to another.This is the second record for Long Island, as far as we have been able to discover.--JULIUSM. JOHNSON and LeDLOW GRISCOM, New York City.An Additional Specimen of the Labrador Duck.--A short time ago, while examining the contents of a large case containing a miscellaneous collection of wild-fowl skins, stored in the museum of the Boston Society of Natural History, I came upon an unlabelled skin that I identifled as a juvenal male Camptorhynchus labradorius.Dr. Glover M. Allen also examined the specimen and referred it to the same species.Uiffortunately there was no label whatsoever on the skin to give the slightest clue as to when or where it was taken, and there is no reference to any such bird in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History.Mr. C. Emerson Brown, who has mounted the specimen, states that it was in very poor condition; being so grease-burned that on relaxing, it disintegrated into countless small fragments.Besides leaving large masses of fat adhering to the skin the preparator had neglected to clean the skull.Such carelessness would lead one to believe that the bird was taken long ago, at a time when neither collector nor recipient considered this species worthy of any especial attention.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.