Species VI. ANAS STSEPERA. 



THE GADWALL. 



[Plate LXXI. Fig. 1, Male.] 



Le Chipeau, Briss. vi., p. 339, 8, pi. 33, fig. 1.— Bcff. ix., 187.— P?. Enl. 958.— 

 Arct. Zool. p. 575. — L.^th. Syn. in., p. 515.* 



This beautiful Duck I have met with in very distant parts of the 

 United States, viz., on the Seneca Lake in New York, about the twen- 

 tieth of October, and at Louisville on the Ohio, in February. I also 

 shot it near Big Bone Lick in Kentucky. With its particular manners 

 or breeding place, I am altogether unacquainted. 



The length of this species is twenty inches, extent thirty-one inches ; 

 bill two inches long, formed very much like that of the Mallard, and of 

 a brownish black ; crown dusky brown, rest of the upper half of the 

 neck brownish white, both thickly speckled with black ; lower part of 

 the neck and breast dusky black, elegantly ornamented with large con- 

 centric semicircles of white ; scapulars waved with lines of white on a 

 dusky ground, but narrower than that of the breast ; primaries ash ; 

 greater wing-coverts black, and several of the lesser coverts immediately 

 above chestnut red ; speculum white, bordered below with black, form- 

 ing three broad bands on the wing of chestnut, black, and white ; belly 

 dull white ; rump and tail coverts black, glossed with green ; tail 

 tapering, pointed, of a pale brown ash edged with white ; flanks dull 

 white elegantly waved ; tertials long, and of a pale brown, legs orange 

 red. 



The female I have never seen. Latham describes it as follows : 

 " differs in having the colors on the wings duller, though marked the 

 same as the male ; the breast reddish brown spotted with black ; the 

 feathers on the neck and back edged with pale red ; rump the same 

 instead of black ; and those elegant semicircular lines on the neck and 

 breast wholly wanting." 



The flesh of this duck is excellent, and the windpipe of the male is 

 furnished with a large labyrinth. 



The Gadwall is very rare in the northern parts of the United States ; 



* Anas sirepera, Gmel. Si/si. i., p. 520, No. 20.— Ind. Orn. p. 849, No. 69.— Temm 

 Man. d'Orn. p. 837.— Bewick, ii., p. 314. 



Vol. III.— 6 (81) 



