BUFFEL-HEADED DUCK. 379 



from the rapidity with which they can dive, they often 

 allow you to go quite near them, though they will then 

 watch every motion, and at the snap of your gun, or on 

 its being discharged, disappear with the swiftness of thought, 

 and, perhaps, as quickly rise again within a few yards, as 

 if to ascertain the cause of their alarm. When these birds 

 return to us from the north, the number of the young so 

 much exceeds that of the old, that to find males in full 

 plumage is much more uncommon than toward the time 

 of their departure, when I have thought the males as nu- 

 merous as the females. Although at times they are very 

 fat, their flesh is fishy and disagreeable; many of them 

 however, are offered for sale in our markets. 



" The note is a mere croak, much resembling that of 

 the Golden Eye, but not so loud." These birds leave the 

 United States in spring to breed in more northern regions, 

 and, like the Golden Eye, are said to make their nests in 

 hollow trees. Mr. Audubon saw many in flocks in the 

 Bay of Fundy. The specimen figured by Edwards, plate 

 100, came from Newfoundland, and it occurs in Bermuda. 

 Sir John Richardson states that they frequent the rivers 

 and fresh-water lakes throughout the Fur countries in 

 great numbers, but does not mention having observed 

 them breeding. Dr. Townsend found this species on the 

 streams of the Rocky Mountains ; and it has been ob- 

 served as far westward as Monterey in New California. 

 Captain Beechy, during a voyage to the Pacific and 

 Behring's Straits, found this Duck at San Francisco. 



In the adult male the bill is bluish-black, narrow, and 

 small ; irides hazel ; forehead, lore, chin, throat, and sides 

 of the neck, bluish-black, tinged with rich purple and 

 green ; behind the eye, on the ear-coverts, and thence 

 upwards to the crown of the head, and backwards to the 

 occiput, a triangular patch of pure white ; the feathers of 



