105
CAMPTOLAIMUS LABRADORIA(GM.)
(Plate 36.)
- Anas labradoria Gmelin, Syst. Nat. I, 2, p. 537 (1788—"Habitat gregaria in America, boreali." Ex Pennant and Latham.)
- Anas labradora Latham, Ind. Orn. II, p. 859 (1790).
- Rhynchaspis labradora Stephens, in Shaw's Gen. Zool. XII, 2, p. 121 (1824).
- Fuligula labradora Bonaparte, Ann. Lyceum N.Y. II, p. 391 (1826).
- Somateria labradora Boie, Isis 1828, p. 329.
- Kamptorhynchus labradorus Eyton, Mon. Anat. p. 151 (1838).
- Fuligula grisea Leib, Journ. Acad. Sc. Philad. VIII, p. 170 (1840—young bird).
- Camptolaimus labradorus Gray, List. Gen. B. ed. 2, p. 95 (1841); Dutcher, Auk. 1891, p. 201, pl. II; 1894, pp. 4-12; Hartl. Abh. naturw. Ver. Bremen XVI, p. 23 (1895).
- Camptolaemus labradorius Baird, B.N. Amer. p. 803 (1858); Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, Water—B. N. Amer. II, p. 63 (1884); Milne-Edw. and Oustalet, Centen. Mus. d'Hist. Nat., Notice Ois. éteint. p. 51, pl. IV (1893); Salvadori, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. XXVII, p. 416 (1895).
The adult male and a young male, both in my museum, are represented on plate 36, but the young bird became too rufous, through the colour type reproduction, and should be somewhat more mouse-gray. Though first technically named by Gmelin in 1788, this duck was first described in 1785 by Pennant, in the Arctic Zoology II, p. 559, as follows:—
"Pied Duck. With the lower part of the bill black, the upper yellow, on the summit of the head is an oblong black spot; forehead, cheeks, rest of the head and neck, white; the lower part encircled with black; scapulars and coverts of wings white; back, breast, belly, and primaries, black; tail cuneiform, and dusky; legs black. The bill of the supposed female? resembles that of the male, head and neck mottled with cinereous brown and dirty white; primaries dusky; speculum white; back, breast, and belly clouded with different shades of ash-colour; tail dusky and cuneiform; legs black. Size of a common Wild Duck.
"Sent from Connecticut, to Mrs. Blackburn. Possibly the great flocks of pretty Pied Ducks, which whistled as they flew, or as they fed, seen by Mr. Lawson in the western branch of Cape Fear inlet, were of this kind."
The Labrador-Duck is one of those birds, the disappearance of which is not easily explained. As Mr. Dutcher truly said, "we can speculate as to the cause of its disappearance, but we have no facts to warrant a conclusion." Formerly Camptolaimus was of regular occurrence along the northern Atlantic shores of North America, in winter south to New Jersey and New York. It has often been sold on the markets of New York and Baltimore, and nobody anticipated even fifty years ago that they might become extinct, but they
