102 RUDDY DUCK. 



come common in those districts where they had been either unknown, 

 or considered very rare. Of the Sylvia magnolia, Wilson declares that 

 he had seen but two individuals, and these in the western country ; 

 the Muscicapa cucullata he says is seldom observed in Pennsylvania, 

 and the Northern States ; the Muscicapa pusilla, and the Muscicapa 

 Canadensis, he considered rare birds with us ; notwithstanding, in the 

 month of May, 1815, all of these were seen in our gardens ; and the 

 editor noted the last mentioned as among the most numerous of the 

 passenger birds of that season. 



The subject of this chapter affords a case in point. The year subse- 

 quent to the death of our author this Duck began to make its appear- 

 ance in our waters. In October, 1814, the editor procured a female, 

 which had been killed from a flock, consisting of five, at Windmill 

 Island, opposite to Philadelphia. In October, 1818, he shot three indi- 

 viduals, two females and a male ; and in April last another male, all 

 of which, except one, were young birds. He has also at various times, 

 since 1814, seen several other male specimens of this species, not one of 

 which was an adult. In effect, the only old males which he has ever 

 seen were one in Peale's Museum, and another in the Cabinet of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 



The Duck figured in the plate as the female was a young male, as the 

 records of the Museum show ; the great diff"erence between its colors 

 and markings, and those of the full-plumaged male, having induced the 

 author to conclude it was a female, although he was perfectly familiar 

 with the fact, that the young males of several species of this genus so 

 nearly resemble the other sex, it requires a very accurate eye, aided by 

 much experience, to distinguish them by their external characters. This 

 is precisely the case with the present species ; the yearlings, of both 

 sexes, are alike ; and it is not until the succeeding spring that those 

 characters appear in the males which enable one to indicate them, inde- 

 pendent of dissection. 



The opinion of our author that this species is not the Jamaica 

 Shoveller of Latham the editor cannot subscribe to, it appearing to 

 him that the specimen from which Latham took his description was a 

 young male of the Duck now before us. The latter informs us that the 

 species appears in Jamaica in October or November ; remains till 

 March ; and then retires to the north. This account coincides with 

 ours : we see the bird on its way to the south in October ; it reaches 

 Jamaica in November ; it departs thence in March, and revisits us, in 

 regular progression, in April. Where its summer residence is we are 

 not informed ; and we are equally ignorant whether the species is nu- 

 merous in any part of our continent or not. 



Judging from the descriptions of the Ural Duck of European writers, 

 ciicrr should seem to be a great affinity between that and the present. 



