RUDDY DUCK. 427 



found towards the head of tide waters, in estuaries and 

 small lacustrine ponds, at no great distance from the ocean. 

 They are common in the market of Boston, generally 

 known by the name of Dun-Birds, and their flesh is good 

 and much esteemed as game. 



The length of this species appears to vary in an extraordinary 

 degree. Wilson gives it 15^ inches; I have found it about 17, and 

 Richardson's measurement gives 19 inches ! the tarsus 1 inch 4 lines ; 

 middle toe 2 inches and 4 lines. In the male the upper surface of 

 the head and nape is velvet-black. The middle of the back and tail 

 brownish-black. Throat, neck, fore part of the back, rump, scapu- 

 lars, and flanks, pure brownish-orange. The sides of the head and 

 chin white. Wings unspotted hair-brown, the secondaries tipped 

 with white. Base of the under plumage clove-brown, its tips silvery 

 white. Bill shining light blue. Lids brown. Legs brown. Nos- 

 trils near together, situated in the anterior part of a large oval mem- 

 brane. Tail wedge-formed or fan-shaped, of 20 narrow and strikingly 

 unequal feathers in length, the shortest being only about an inch, 

 while the longest are 3 inches, or upwards, their points in the adult 

 birds, present a sphacelous continuation of the shafts beyond the barbs, 

 which terminate bluntly, and are concave beneath : the hollow or 

 guttered appearance of the feathers themselves above is nearly equal 

 throughout, and only very conspicuous in the young birds, or im- 

 mediately after the moult ; in these likewise the sphacelous tips of 

 the tail are yet undeveloped. In an old female, which I possess, 

 the sphacelous tips of the tail are prolonged into a set of ad- 

 ditional proliferous feathers with bristly and nearly simple distant 

 setaceous barbs. Whether this character be constant at a certain 

 age or not I am unable to determine. — The young male resembles 

 the female, but differs in having the sides of the face pure white to 

 beyond and beneath the ears. A few rufous feathers are also some- 

 times already visible among the plumage on the lower part of the 

 back. The smaller tail feathers, being probably subject to moult, 

 accounts for the apparent diversity of their number. Wilson and 

 Bonaparte giving 18, and Richardson only 16, while the actual 

 number is 20. 



