as not with him on this occasion, but
chose the wild shooting on the shore, where I got one or two Golden
Plovers, and Turnstone and Ring Dotterel enough for a pie--and,
by-the-bye, a very good pie they made.

Professor Ansted includes the Teal in his list, and marks it as
occurring in Guernsey and Sark. There is no specimen in the Museum at
present.

143. EIDER DUCK. _Somateria mollissima,_ Linnaeus. French, "Canard
eider," "Morillon eider."--The Eider Duck occasionally straggles to the
Channel Islands in the autumn, but very seldom, and the majority of
those that do occur are in immature plumage. I have one immature bird,
killed in Guernsey in the winter of 1876; and that is the only Channel
Island specimen that has come under my notice, and I think almost the
only one Mr. Couch had had through his hands.

The Eider Duck is included in Professor Ansted's list, and marked as
occurring in Guernsey. The King Eider is also included in the list, but
no letter marking the distribution through the Islands is given, and no
information beyond the mere name, so I should think in all probability
this must have been a mistake, especially as I can find no other
evidence whatever of its occurrence. There is no specimen of either bird
in the Museum.

144. COMMON SCOTER. _Oidemia nigra_, Linnaeus. French, "Macreuse,"
"Canard macreuse."--The Scoter is a common autumn and winter visitant to
all the Islands, generally making its appearance in considerable flocks;
sometimes, however, the flocks get broken up, and single birds may then
be seen scattered about in the more sheltered bays. Some apparently
remain till tolerably late in the spring as Mr. MacCulloch wrote me word
that a pair of Scoters were killed in the last week in April, 1878, off
the Esplanade; he continues, "I had only a cursory glance of them as I
was passing through the market in a hurry, and I am not sure they were
not Velvet Scoters. The male had a great deal of bright yellow about the
nostrils." Mr. MacCulloch, however, told me afterwards, when I asked him
more about them, and especially whether he had seen any white about the
wing, that he had not seen any white whatever about them, so I have but
little doubt that they were Common Scoters, and he could hardly have
failed to be struck by the conspicuous white bar on the wing, by which
the Velvet Scoter, both male and female, may immediately be
distinguished from the Common Scoter. As on the South Coast of Devo