The Labrador duck, Camptorhynchus labradorius, is (or was) a mysterious bird. It was known from the Labrador region, but may never have actually bred there. It had a strange-shaped beak, but no-one knows what it fed on. And it was last recorded in the 1870s, in New York, but no-one knows why it became extinct.
All we do know is that it was probably never very common, and now it has definitely gone.
It is the perfect emblem of Labrador cricket, therefore. Although the nominally Labradorian Ducks beat the Newfoundland B'ys at the King George V Stadium last summer, the team's links to the Big Land were tenuous. None of the players were from the region, and only a couple had ever lived there.
And, as I found out this summer, the chances of organized, outdoor cricket thriving in Labrador are slimmer than a malnourished white spruce:
ESPN Cricinfo | Cricket in the land of murderous flies
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