GOLDEN EYE. 121 



and toes reddish orange ; webs very large, and of a dark purplish 

 brown ; hind toe and exterior edge of the inner one broadly finned ; 

 sides of the bill obliquely dentated ; tongue covered above with a fine 

 thick velvety down of a whitish color. 



The full plumaged female is seventeen inches in length, and twenty- 

 seven inches in extent ; bill brown, orange near the tip ; head and part of 

 the neck brown, or very dark drab, bounded below by a ring of white ; 

 below that the neck is ash, tipped with white ; rest of the lower parts 

 white ; wings dusky, six of the secondaries and their greater coverts 

 pure white, except the tips of the last, which are touched with dusky 

 spots ; rest of the wing-coverts cinereous, mixed Avith whitish ; back and 

 scapulars dusky, tipped with brown ; feet dull orange ; across the vent 

 a band of cinereous ; tongue covered with the same velvety down as the 

 male. 



The young birds of the first season very much resemble the females ; 

 but may generally be distinguished by the white spot, or at least its 

 rudiments, which marks the corner of the mouth. Yet, in some cases, 

 even this is variable, both old and young male birds occasionally wanting 

 the spot. 



From an examination of many individuals of this species of both 

 sexes, I have very little doubt that the Morillon of English writers 

 (Anas glaucion) is nothing more than the young male of the Golden- 

 eye. 



The conformation of the trachea, or windpipe of the male of this 

 species, is singular. Nearly about its middle it swells out to at least 

 five times its common diameter, the concentric hoops or rings, of which 

 this part is formed, falling obliquely into one another when the wind- 

 pipe is relaxed ; but when stretched, this part swells out to its full size, 

 the rings being then drawn apart ; this expansion extends for about 

 three inches ; three more below this it again forms itself into a hard car- 

 tilaginous shell, of an irregular figure, and nearly as large as a walnut ; 

 from the bottom of this labyrinth, as it has been called, the trachea 

 branches off to the two lobes of the lungs; that branch whicli goes to 

 the left lobe being three times the diameter of the right. The female 

 has nothing of all this. The intestines measure five feet in length, and 

 are large and thick. 



I have examined many individuals of this species, of both sexes and 

 in various stages of color, and can therefore affirm, with certainty, that 

 the foregoing descriptions are correct. Europeans have differed greatly 

 in their accounts of this bird, from finding males in the same garb as 

 the females ; and other full plumaged males destitute of the spot of 

 white on the cheek ; but all these individuals bear such evident marks 

 of belonging to one peculiar species, that no judicious naturalist, with 

 all these varieties before him, can long hesitate to pronounce them the 

 same. 



