504 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



FULIX MABILA. Baird. 

 The Scaup Duck; Big Black Head; Blue Bill. 



Anas marila, Linnaeus. Syst. Nat, I. (1766) 196. Wils. Am. Orn., VIII. (1814> 

 64. 



Fuliffula marUa, Audubon. Birds Am., VII. (1843) 355. Gir. Birds L. Island, 

 <1844) 321. 



DESCKIPTION. 



Heid and neck all round, jugulum and shoulders, lower part of back, tail, and 

 coverts, black ; the head with a gloss of dark -green on the sides ; rest of under parts 

 white ; feathers on the lower parts of belly and on the sides, the long feathers of the 

 flanks, the interscapulum, and the scapulars, white, waved in zigzag transversely 

 with black ; greater and middle wing coverts similarly marked, but more finely and 

 obscurely; greater coverts towards the tip and the tertials greenish -black; the 

 speculum is white, bordered behind by greenish-black; the white extending across 

 the whole central portion of the secondaries ; outer primaries and tips of all, brown- 

 ish-black; inner ones pale-gray; the central line dusky; axillars and middle of the 

 inferior surface of the wing white ; bill blue; the nail black; legs plumbeous; iris 

 yellow. 



Female with the head brown ; the region all round the base of the bill white ; the 

 undulations of black and white on the feathers wanting, or but faintly indicated 

 above. 



Length, twenty inches ; wing, nine ; tarsus, one and fifty-eight one-hundredths 

 inches ; commissure, two and sixteen one-hundredths inches. 



Hob. Whole of North America and Europe. 



This species is, although not abundant, generally met 

 with on our coast in spring and fall. It seldom penetrates 

 far inland, but prefers the bays and mouths of creeks on the 

 shore, where it has all the habits of the sea Ducks. I have 

 known of its being taken in small numbers on Punkapoag 

 Pond, Massachusetts, where it associated with the common 

 Dusky Duck. Giraud, in his " Birds of Long Island," 

 speaks of it as being very abundant on our coasts ; arriving 

 from the North from the 10th to the 20th of October in 

 large flocks. My experience has been, that it is far from 

 being an abundant species ; and that it is more often seen 

 in flocks of not more than eight or ten birds than in larger 

 parties. Its habits, however, may vary in different localities ; 

 and it may be abundant, like many other species, in some 

 sections, when it is comparatively scarce in others. 



It passes to the most northern countries to spend the 



