VOl i909" VI ] Richmond, Ornithological Writings of Rafinesque. 251 



sont tres-longues, tres-aigues et noiratres, a reflets. On voit line 

 tache remarquable, cendree ou blanchatre, salie interieurement 

 vers le dos. La queue est noire, tres-longue, tres-fourchue, avec 

 la penne exterieure de chaque cote aussi longue que les ailes. 



2 C . Le figuier a queue cunei'forme. Sylvia cuneata. 



U est long de cinq polices. Le bee est de couleur de corne, avec 

 la mandibule superieure anguleuse, et presqu'entierement brune. 

 Le dessus du corps est d'un gris olivatre, avec le gosier blanchatre, 

 les epaules cendrees, la poitrine et le ventre jaunatres. Les ailes 

 sont courtes, a pennes brunes bordees de grisatre; plusieurs plumes 

 sus-alaires sont terminees de blanchatre; la queue est cunei'forme, 

 brune en dessous, avec l'extremite inferieure des pennes laterales 

 blanche, d'un bran clair en dessus, avec l'extremite inferieure de 

 chaque autre penne blanche, et marquee d'une tache arrondie 

 d'un bran fonee. F. M. D. 



Hirundo longipennis is the well known Macropteryx (or Hemi- 

 •procne) longipennis; and Sylvia cuneata is in all probability the 

 species later described by Horsfield as Prima Jamiliaris. 



The Medical Repository (New York). Second Hexade. II, 

 No. 2, 1S04. 



[p. 208.] 



CANVASS-BACK DUCK AND ITS FOOD. 



Extract of a letter from Mr. C. S. Rafinesque to Dr. Mitch ill, dated 

 Philadelphia, Sept. 7, 1804. 



"Having seen in the Medical Repository the mention made 

 of the canvass-back duck and its food (Hex. I. vol. v. p. 342), 

 I have paid particular attention to ascertain what both were; 

 and it is with some degree of pleasure I am able to tell you 

 that I have been successful enough to find their true scientific 

 names. The first is certainly the anas ferina of the ornitho- 

 logists, le milvuin of Buffon and the French authors, which 

 is found in Europe, Asia and America. I have seen it myself 

 in Italy and France, where it is reckoned a good game, but 

 not so dainty as it is thought here. I have examined four of 

 them in Philadelphia, which came from the neighbourhood of 



