INTRODUCTION. 



'T^ HE family of the Anatidae is composed of web-footed, 

 swimming birds, having a bill covered with a soft 

 skin, and a protuberance, sometimes hardly perceptible, 

 at the tip, and contains the Swan, Geese, Ducks, and Mer- 

 gansers, constituting Huxley's order Chenomorph^ 

 (Greek xw, cJicii, a goose, + f^op<j>rj, morphc, form). 



The family is divided into several subfamilies, the 

 number varying according to the views an ornithologist 

 may have as to their necessity, but never lq;ss than five, 

 viz.: Cygnin^, Swan; Anserine, Geese; Anatin^, 

 Fresh-Water Ducks; Fuligulin^, Sea Ducks, and 

 Mergin/E, Mergansers. In this book the subfamilies 

 are seven, as, in addition to those just named, there have 

 been adopted, Plectropterin.e, in which, among sev- 

 eral other species all exotic, is included the genus ^x 

 represented in North America by our beautiful Wood 

 Duck (and which in most lists is placed far from its ap- 

 parently true position), and Erismaturin^, containing 

 the spine- or stifif-tail ducks. In addition to these there 

 are four other subfamilies; Anseranatin^, Cereop- 

 siN.E, Chenonettin.^, and MerganettiNtE, whose 

 species are all exotic to this continent. 



These eleven subfamilies possess something like two 

 hundred species, about sixty of which are found in North 

 America. A conspicuous feature of these birds is a hard 

 bony expansion at the end of the bill, occasionally occu- 

 pying the whole tip and frequently bent over, forming a 



