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THE SUMMER DUCK. 501 
DESCRIPTION. 6 
Head and crest metallic-green to below the eyes; the cheeks, and a stripe from 
Dehind the eye, purplish; a narrow short line from the upper angle of the bill along 
the side of the crown and through the crest, another on the upper eyelid, a stripe 
starting below and behind the eye, and running into the crest paralle with the one 
first mentioned, the chin and upper part of the throat sending a well-defined branch 
up towards the eye, and another towards the nape, snowy-white; lower neck and 
jugulum, and sides of the base of tail, rich-purple; the jugulum with triangular 
spots of white and a chestnut shade; remaining under parts white, as is a crescent 
in front of the wing bordered behind by black; sides yellowish-gray, finely lined 
with black; the long feathers of the flanks broadly black at the end, with a sub- 
terminal bar, and sometimes a tip of white; back and neck above nearly uniform 
bronzed-green and purple; scapulars and innermost tertials velvet-black, glossed on 
the inner webs with violet; the latter with a white bar at the end; greater coverts 
violet, succeeded by a greenish speculum, tipped with white; primaries silvery-white 
externally towards the end; the tips internally violet and purple; iris bright-red. 
Female with the wings quite similar; the back more purplish; the sides of the 
head and neck ashy; the region round the base of the bill, a patch through the eyes, 
and the chin, white; the purple of the jugulum replaced by brownish; the waved 
feathers on the sides wanting. 
Length, nineteen inches; wing, nine and fifty one-hundredths; tarsus, one and 
forty one-hundredths; commissure, one and fifty-four one-hundredths inches. 
Hab.— Continent of North America. 
This, the most beautiful of all our Ducks, is pretty abun- 
dantly distributed through New England in the breeding 
season. Wilson’s description of its habits is so much 
better than I can give, that I make a liberal extract from 
it. He says, — 
“The Summer Duck is equally well known in Mexico and many 
of the West India 
Islands. During the 
whole of our winters, 
they are occasionally 
seen in the States 
south of the Potomac. 
On the 10th of Janua- 
ry, I met with two on 
a creek near Peters- 
ourg, in Virginia. In 
the more northern dis- 
tricts, however, they are migratory. In Pennsylvania, the female 
usually begins to lay late in April, or early in May. Instances 
