414 WEB-FOOTED BIRDS. 



KING DUCK. 



(Fuligula spectabilis, Bonap. Synops. No. 332. £nas spectabilis, 

 LiKN. Faun. Suec. No. 112. Lath. Ind. No. 36. Temm. ii. p. 851. 

 Somateria spectabilis, Leach. Richard, and Swains. North. Zool. 

 ii. p. 447. King Duck, Penn. Arct. Zool. No. 481. Grey-headed 

 Duck, Edwards, pi. 154. Le Canard a tete grise, Buff. Ois. ix. 

 p. 253.) 



Sp. Charact. — Frontal plates of the bill broad, and rounded : no 

 speculum. — Male black; neck and back white, the crown and 

 nape bluish-grey ; an arrow-shaped black mark on the throat. 

 Female similar with that of the Eider ; but with the frontal plate 

 nearly vertical. 



This species, so nearly allied to the Eider, is also an in- 

 habitant of the same glacial regions, living generally out 

 at sea, and feeding independently of the land, chiefly upon 

 the mollusca which abound in the Arctic Sea. They are 

 never seen in fresh waters, and only resort to land for the 

 indispensable purposes of reproduction. Being well pro- 

 vided with a thick and downy robe, they are little inclined 

 to change their situation, however rigorous the climate, 

 and, as the frost invades their resorts, they continually re- 

 cede farther out to sea, and dwell securely amidst eternal 

 barriers of ice and all the horrors of an arctic winter. The 

 King Duck, still more sedentary than the Eider, is seldom 

 seen beyond the 59th parallel, except in the depth of winter, 

 when, according to Audubon, they are observed off the coast 

 of Halifax, in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, &lc. and a few 

 have been obtained off Boston and at Eastport in Maine. 

 They abound in Greenland and Spitzbergen, visit and some- 

 times breed in the Orkneys, and other of the remote Scottish 

 isles. A few are also occasionally seen on the coasts of the 

 Baltic and in Denmark. They breed sometimes in the crev- 

 ices of rocks impending over the sea, making a nest of sticks 



