The Scottish Naturalist. 5 1 



Ross ; another by Captain Campbell ; and the third by Mr John 

 Nelson, Dundee, to whose kindness I am indebted, not only for 

 sending the particulars of the case, but, for forwarding the 

 bird itself for my inspection. He says that, on the 16th of 

 March last, he was in a boat on the river, about three miles 

 below Tayport, and shot it while it was flying past him, at a 

 distance of about seventy yards, going up the water. It is a 

 fine female, in capital plumage, and although exceedingly like 

 the female of the Eider, it maybe known from that species by 

 its somewhat smaller size ; the head and neck are of a lighter 

 brown shade, the bill is shorter, and its base rises higher be- 

 hind the nostril. 



In my specimen of the male, all the variety and shades 

 of colour in the plumage with which this beautiful species 

 is decorated, and the whole general appearance of the bird, 

 agree closely in the main with Mr. Gould's* splendid figure 

 of a male of the King Duck, which, he says, was made for him 

 by the celebrated Dr. Rae, while travelling in the Arctic regions 

 in search of Sir J. Franklin. The chief difference observable 

 between the two, when compared together, is, that in the figure, 

 both the bill and the sides of the vertical protuberance on the 

 upper part of its base are represented the same in colour, a 

 darkish red. In my specimen the bill is of a deep red, and the 

 sides of the basal protuberance are of a darkish orange yellow. 

 In this it seems to accord with the example described by Dr. 

 De Kay.t He states that the bill is reddish ; the ascending por- 

 tion verging to orange. The colour of these parts may be ul- 

 timately found to vary according to the season of the year in 

 which the bird is obtained, and, not unlikely, the uniformity in 

 colour represented in Mr Gould's figure may be an ornamental 

 feature assumed during the breeding season. 



The stomach of my specimen was empty, with the exception 

 of small angular fragments of pebble. The intestine was five 

 feet eleven inches in length. I could only see one caecum, 

 situated about two feet from the posterior extremity. The 

 trachea, was in shape as represented in Sabine's figure in the 

 Linnean Transactions. J 



The above is the second record, so far as I know, of 

 an adult male of this species having been obtained in Britain 



* Birds of Great Britain. + Zoology of N. York, Birds. % Vol. 12. 



