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504 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
FULIX MARILA.— Baird. 
The Scaup Duck; Big Black Head; Blue Bill. 
Anas marila, Linneus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 196. Wils. Am. Orn., VIII. (1814) 
84, 
Fuligula marila, Audubon. Birds Am., VII. (1848) 855. Gir. Birds L. Island, 
(1844) 821. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Head and neck all round, jugulum and shoulders, lower part of back, tail, and 
coverts, black; the head with a gloss of dark-green on the sides; rest of under parts 
white; feathers on the lower parts of belly and on the sides, the long feathers of the 
flanks, the interscapulum, and the scapulars, white, waved in zigzag transversely 
with black; greater and middle wing coverts similarly marked, but more finely and 
obscurely; greater coverts towards the tip and the tertials greenish-black; the 
speculum is white, bordered behind by greenish-black; the white extending across 
the whole central portion of the secondaries; outer primaries and tips of all, brown- 
ish-black; inner ones pale-gray; the central line dusky; axillars and middle of the 
inferior surface of the wing white; bill blue; the nail black; legs plumbeous; iris 
yellow. 
Female with the head brown; the region all round the base of the bill white; the 
undulations of black and white on the feathers wanting, or but faintly indicated 
above. 
Length, twenty inches; wing, nine; tarsus, one and fifty-eight one-hundredths 
inches; commissure, two and sixteen one-hundredths inches. 
Hab. — Whole of North America and Europe. 
This species is, although not abundant, generally met 
with on our coast in spring and fall. It seldom penetrates 
far inland, but prefers the bays and mouths of creeks on the 
shore, where it has all the habits of the sea Ducks. I have 
known of its being taken in small numbers on Punkapoag 
Pond, Massachusetts, where it associated with the common 
Dusky Duck. Giraud, in his “ Birds of Long Island,” 
speaks of it as being very abundant on our coasts; arriving 
from the North from the 10th to the 20th of October in 
large flocks. My experience has been, that it is far from 
being an abundant species; and that it is more often seen 
in flocks of not more than eight or ten birds than in larger 
parties. Its habits, however, may vary in different localities ; 
and it may be abundant, like many other species, in some 
sections, when it is comparatively scarce in others. 
It passes to the most northern countries to spend the 
