Apparent Status of the European Widgeon in North America

Abstract

ON December 3, 1842, the first recorded American specimen of the European Widgeon (Mareca penelope) was purchased in Fulton Mar ket, New York City. It had been killed in the Bay of Long Island. For many years there appeared records of the occurrence of this bird in widely separated localities both on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as well as in the interior, generally accompanied by the statement that it was a straggler, of rare occurrence, an occasional visitor a foreign land, etc. For many years, also, it was (and by many people still is) considered a visitor on the eastern coast Iceland by way of Greenland, and on the western coast Siberia by way of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. The fact that three of the Atlantic Coast birds had previously been banded in Iceland has lent considerable weight to this hypothesis, as has also the fact that the species has never been known to breed in North America. As long as the records were comparatively few in number, this theory was quite plausible, but with the multiplication of records beginning along in the 1880's, it became apparent that the bird was more than a casual visitor or straggler. In fact, in one region on the Pacific coast-Portland-it was even said to be common. After a careful search of the literature I have collected 596 records, both sight and specimen. I feel quite certain that I have missed some, possibly many, as so many have been published in obscure and little-read literature; but admitting this, enough records have been obtained, I think, to show an interesting situation, and I doubt if additional records will alter the picture. In lists Nos. 1, 2, and 3 for the three main areas mentioned later, sight records have been designated vis.; birds collected, sp. Of these 596 records, 94 are without sufficiently complete data for plotting (see list No. 4), except for spotting on the map for locality. It will be readily seen, as stated above, that there are far too many occurrences for them to be accidental, and furthermore it must be borne in mind that many of the specimen records were made in the short period of the gunning season, leaving the rest of the months with but few observers, although during this time the species undoubtedly did occur. Phillips and Lincoln ('American Waterfowl': 293, 1930) state that from the capture of at least three specimens on our East coast that were banded in Iceland, it would appear likely that all our eastern