BROAD-BILL. 1 65 



in the male are black are in the female brown. The 

 back is much darker, faintly marked with zig-zag white 

 lines. The bill is darker. 



Many widely different opinions are expressed as to 

 the value of the broad-bill as food, and those who de- 

 bate this question are both right and both wrong. In 

 other words, the flesh of the broad-bill, as of most 

 other ducks, is sometimes good and sometimes bad, de- 

 pending on the food which it eats. Along the New 

 England coast, where, to a great extent it feeds on shell- 

 fish and other animal matter, the broad-bill is not a deli- 

 cate bird, but further south, where its food is largely 

 vegetable, and where its name is changed to black-head 

 and blue-bill, it is a most excellent fowl. In the in- 

 terior, too, it lives chiefly on vegetable matter. There 

 it is known as the scaup duck, blue-bill, raft duck, big 

 fowl duck, and is eagerly sought after. However, 

 the tendency of this bird appears to be toward the sea- 

 coast. It is abundant in California, where many are 

 killed, but it does not seem to go as far south as its 

 relative, the little black-head, and winters on the New 

 England and New York coasts and in New Jersey, be- 

 ing, in my experience, rather rare as far south as Vir- 

 ginia and North Carolina, where the little black-head 

 is very abundant. 



The broad-bill is a species of wide range, being 

 found throughout North America, as far south as Cen- 

 tral America, and also in northern portions of Europe 

 and Asia. It formerly bred in some numbers on the 

 northern prairies, and I have found its nests in North 



