508 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Bill long, slender, and tapering; head all round and neck chestnut; the top of 

 the head and region around the base of the bill dusky-brown ; rest of neck, body 

 anterior to the shoulders, back behind, rump and tail coverts, black; under parts 

 white; the region anterior to the anus, the sides, the interscapulars and scapulars, 

 white, finely dotted, in transverse line, with black, the white greatly predominating; 

 speculum bluish-gray, lighter externally; the innermost secondaries of the specu- 

 lum edged externally with black; iris carmine. 



Female with the black and chestnut replaced by brown, the cheeks and chin 

 lighter, and some tinged with dull-rufous. 



Length, twenty and ten one-hundredths; wing, nine and thirty one-hundredths ; 

 tarsus, one and seventy one-hundredths; commissure, two and sixty -five inches. 



The Canvas-back is rarely taken in New England. I 

 have seen a few that were killed in Punkapoag Pond, Can- 

 ton, Mass. J. A. Allen speaks of its being occasionally 

 found at the western part of the State ; and I once killed 

 one in Lake Umbagog, Me. It generally passes to its 

 northern breeding-grounds, and back to its winter home, 

 through the interior of the country, seldom by the seaboard, 

 at least north of Pennsylvania ; and, when found in New 

 England, is only a wanderer from the great flight. 



Wilson, in describing its habits, says, 



" The Canvas-back Duck arrives in the United States from the 

 north about the middle of October : a few descend to the Hudson 

 and Delaware ; but the great body of these birds resort to the 

 numerous rivers belonging to and in the neighborhood of the 

 Chesapeake Bay, particularly the Susquehanna, the Patapsco, 

 Potomac, and James Rivers, which appear to be their general 

 winter rendezvous. Beyond this, to the south, I can find no cer- 

 tain accounts of them. At the Susquehanna, they are called 

 Canvas-backs ; on the Potomac, White-backs ; and on James 

 River, Sheldrakes. They are seldom found at a great distance up 

 any of these rivers, or even in the salt-water bay, but in that par- 

 ticular part of tide-water where a certain grass-like plant grows, on 

 the roots of which they feed. This plant, which is said to be a 

 species of vallisneria, grows on fresh-water shoals of from seven 

 to nine feet (but never where these are occasionally dry), in long, 

 narrow, grass-like blades, of four or five feet in length : the root is 

 white, and has some resemblance to small celery. This grass is in 



