> as lemmas

1766 J. Banks Diary 1 Sept. in A. M. Lysaght J. Banks in Newfoundland & Labrador (1971) 139 The People here tell a remarkable Fact if it is a true one of a Kind of duck Cald here Lords & Ladies..who they say at times Pursue the Gulls whom they Persecute till they make them Dung which they catch with great dexterity before it reaches the water & immediately Leave off the Chace.

1770 G. Cartwright Jrnl. Resid. Coast Labrador 29 July (1792) I. 20 I shot four eider ducks, and seven lords and ladies.

1836 E. Wix Six Months of Newfoundland Missionary's Jrnl. 162 I had a fine view of a patch fox in my walk, saw several seals, and some of those very beautiful birds, called by the people of Newfoundland ‘lords and ladies’.

1901 Birds & Nature 9 155/1 In the New England States and northward along the Atlantic coast it [sc. the Harlequin Duck] is frequently called the ‘Lord and Lady’, because of the white crescents and spots of its plumage and the proud bearing of the male.

1930 Canad. Geogr. Jrnl. 1 32/2 The Harlequin Duck..is known to trappers and prospectors in the far west as ‘Lord and Lady Duck’.

1988 Defenders July 17/1 This is the one sometimes known as the mountain duck or rock duck, or in pairs as the lord and lady.

2010 Battleboro (Vermont) Reformer (Nexis) 20 Aug. In the pounding surf along the rocky coastline, ‘lords and ladies’ popped to the surface like so many cork bobbers.