100 SCOTER DUCK. 



The Scoters are said to appear on tlie coasts of France in great num- 

 bers, to Tvliich they are attracted by a certain kind of small bivalve 

 shell fish called vahneaux, probably differing little from those already 

 mentioned. Over the beds of these shell fish the fishermen spread their 

 nets, supporting them, horizontally, at the height of two or three feet 

 from the bottom. At the flowing of the tide the Scoters approach in 

 great numbers, diving after their favorite food, and soon get entangled 

 in the nets. Twenty or thirty dozen have sometimes been taken in a 

 single tide. These are sold to the Roman Catholics, who eat them on 

 those days on which they are forbidden by their religion the use of ani- 

 mal food, fish excepted ; these birds, and a few others of the same fishy 

 flavor, having been exempted from the interdict, on the supposition of 

 their being cold blooded, and partaking of the nature of fish.* 



The Scoter abounds in Lapland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Sibe- 

 ria. It was also found by Osbeck, between the islands of Java and St. 

 Paul. lat. 30 and 34, in the month of June.f 



This species is twenty-one inches in length, and thirty-four in extent, 

 and is easily distinguished from all other Ducks by the peculiar form 

 of its bill, which has at the base a large elevated knob, of a red color, 

 divided by a narrow line of yellow, which spreads over the middle of the 

 upper mandible, reaching nearly to its extremity, the edges and lower 

 mandible are black ; the eyelid is yellow, iris dark hazel ; the whole 

 plumage is black, inclining to purple on the head and neck ; legs and 

 feet reddish. 



The female has little or nothing of the knob on the bill ; her plumage 

 above a sooty brown, and below of a grayish white. 



* Bewifk- f Voy. i., p. 120. 



