SEA DUCKS. 405 



yard, like Turkeys, they have very singular and exciting 

 antipathies. On such occasions both Ducks and Drakes 

 shake their tails, stretch out their heads, and hiss and quack 

 in a low tone with great affectation of anger and earnest. 

 The male puffs and blows very much, but the whole one by 

 one make their retreat before a small clucking Hen, who 

 seems to view them with total indifference. Two males will 

 also sometimes wage a very warm but harmless war in 

 jealousy. In Virginia and North Catolina these domestic 

 birds begin to lay as early as February. 



The Musk Duck is about 2 feet long. The bill about 2 inches, 

 red, except about the nostrils and at tip, where it is dark brown. 

 A broad red and naked skin sprinkled with papillae, covers the 

 cheeksj extends behind the eyes and swells out at the base of the bill 

 into a red caruncle, which Belon compares to a cherry. The crown 

 black ; temples, chin, and throat, white, varied with spots of black. 

 Breast and upper part of the belly brown, mixed with white. Back 

 and rump brown, glossed with golden-green. The lower part of the 

 belly white. The three first quills white, the remainder brown. 

 The tail very large and full, consisting of 20 feathers, golden-green, 

 except the outer feather on each side, which is white. Legs red. 

 The female more obscurely colored, and the naked space about the 

 head smaller. 



SEA DUCES. (FuLiGULA, Bonap, and Ray in part.) 



In these birds the bill is generally similar with that of the prece- 

 ding genus. The head is thick, wholly feathered, and the neck stout 

 and much shorter than the body. The feet are placed very far 

 back, and are large and stout ; the tibia partly covered by the skin 

 of the belly, and furnished in front with an acute prominence; tar- 

 sus much shorter than the middle toe, extremely compressed ; the 

 toes rather long, middle one longest ; the inner shorter than the 

 outer ; the webs entire, very broad : hind toe equal to a joint of the 

 middle one, furnished icith a membrane, touching the ground at tip. 

 Wings rather short, 1st and 2d, or 2d and 3d primaries, about equal, 

 and longest. Tail of from 12 to 20 feathers. 

 . The female very different from the male in plumage ; the male 



