A Bird’s-Eye View 
or two others inconspicuously marked, I do 
not recall a single instance of it. The wood 
duck, harlequin, and various teals are among 
the handsomest. In migration, ducks com- 
monly spend the day on the water quite far out 
from shore, but at night come to land along 
some inlet, where they can be best approached 
in the early morning before they fly. 
For the field ornithologist perhaps no other 
family of American birds has so evident a clas- 
sification, which I will briefly state. 
From their habits and habitat they fall into 
three distinct groups, wz., river ducks, sea 
ducks, and fishing ducks or mergansers. 
River ducks, as the name implies, chiefly 
frequent fresh-water streams and lakes, and 
principally subsist upon aquatic herbage, with 
very little animal food. As a consequence, 
this group, which naturally includes all the 
smaller and more delicate kinds, such as teals 
and widgeons, together with the domesticated 
sorts, afford fine eating. The breeding range 
of this group, consistently with their greater 
delicacy, is more southerly than that of sea 
ducks, and many of them breed extensively 
throughout the United States. 
Sea ducks are mostly found along the coast, 
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