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"This bird weighs generally about twenty-three ounces, and 

 measures nearly twenty inches in length and two feet in breadth. 

 The bill is an inch and a half long, narrower and serrated on the 

 inner edges; the upper mandible is of a dark lead color, tipped 

 with black. The crown of the head, which is very high and nar- 

 row, is of a cream color, witii a small spot of the same under each 

 eye, the rest of the head, the neck and the breast are bright ru» 

 fous chestnut, obscurely freckled on the head with black spots, and 

 darkest on the chin and throat, which are tinged with a virous 

 color; a band, composed of beautifully waved or indented with 

 narrow ash-brown and white lines, separates the breast and neck ; 

 the back and scapulars are marked with similar leathers, as arc 

 also the sides of the body under the wings, even as low as the thighs, 

 but there they are paler ; the belly, to tiie vent, is wliite ; the ridge 

 of the wing and adjoining coverts, are dusky ash-brown ; the great- 

 er coverts brown, edged with white, in some specimens wholly 

 white, and tipped wiih black, wliich forms an upper border of the 

 changeable green beauty-spot of the wings, which is also bordered 

 on the under side by another stripe, formed by the deep velvet 

 black tips of the secondary quills ; the exterior webs of the ad- 

 joining quills are white, and those next tiie back, which are very 

 long, are of a deep brown — in some specimens deep black — edged 

 with yellowish-white ; the greater quills are brown ; the vent and 

 upper tail coverts black ; the tail, wliicli consists of fourteen fea- 

 thers, is of a iioary brownish ash, edged with yellowish white; 

 the two middle ones are sharp pointed, darker and longer than the 

 rest ; the legs and toes are of a dii-ly lead color, faintly tinged 

 with green, the middle of tlie webs and nail black. The female 

 is brown, tlie middle of tlie feathers deepest ; the fore part of the 

 neck and breast paler, scapulars dark brown, with paler edges; 

 wings and belly as in the male." — Bewick's British Birds. 



An individual of this species, shot in the Bay of Long Island, 

 was procured by George N. Lawrence, Esq., from whom I receiv- 

 ed the following communication ; 



