BLACK SCOTER. 141 



Male in Winter. — The Black Scoter, somewhat smaller 

 than the Velvet, and much less common on our coasts, is of 

 the same form and proportions as it, the body being large 

 and much depressed ; the neck rather short and thick ; the 

 head large, oblong, compressed. 



The bill is nearly of the same length as the head, higher 

 than broad at the base, depressed and flattened toward the 

 end, which is rounded ; the upper mandible with a some- 

 what rounded, compressed knob at the base, its dorsal line 

 rapidly sloping towards the nostrils, then slightly concave, 

 and at the end decurved ; the ridge broad and slightly con- 

 cave at first, toward the end broadly convex, the edges thin, 

 with about thirty lamellae ; the unguis very large and 

 broadly elliptical; the lower mandible flattened, with the 

 intercrural space very long, rather narrow, rounded ante- 

 riorly, bare for about half its length ; the crura slender, re- 

 arcuate, the edges with twenty-five lamellae ; the unguis 

 very large and broadly elliptical ; the gape-line gently re- 

 arcuate. 



The tongue, which is an inch amd ten-twelfths long, and 

 ten-twelfths in its greatest breadth, has the basal papillae 

 long and pointed, the sides with two rows of bristles, the 

 tip thin-edged and rounded. The oesophagus is eleven 

 inches long, about ten-twelfths in width ; the breadth of the 

 proventriculus about an inch. The stomach is extremely 

 muscular, transversely elliptical, an inch and a half in 

 length, and nearly two inches in breadth ; the epithelium 

 dense, rugose, forming two slightly concave grinding sur- 

 faces. The intestine is five feet long, of the nearly uniform 

 width of five-twelfths. The coeca, only four inches distant 

 from the extremity of the intestine, are nine inches in length, 

 scarcely three-twelfths in their greatest width. 



The trachea, seven inches long, is flattened, about five- 

 twelfths in width, narrowed below to three-twelfths, but 

 without any remarkable dilatations. There are about a hun- 

 dred rings, cartilaginous behind, in the trachea, and thirty in 

 the bronchi, which are very large and inflated. 



The nostrils are elliptical, pervious, four-twelfths long. 

 Eyes rather small. The legs very short, and placed rather 



