WILSON'S DESCRIPTION OF A DRAKE. 51 



' The canvas-back is two feet long and three feet 

 in extent, and when in good order weighs three 

 pounds. The bill is large, rising high in the head, 

 three inches in length, and one inch and three- 

 eighths thick at the base, of a glossy black ; eye 

 very small, irides dark red ; cheeks and fore parts o f 

 the head blackish brown ; rest of the head and 

 greater part of the neck bright, glossy, reddish 

 chestnut, ending in a broad space of black that 

 covers the upper part of the breast and spreads 

 round to the back ; back, scapulars, and tertials 

 white, faintly marked with an infinite number of 

 transverse waving lines or points, as if done with 

 a pencil ; whole lower parts of the breast, also the 

 belly, white, slightly pencilled in the same manner, 

 scarcely perceptible on the breast, pretty thick 

 towards the vent ; wing-coverts gray, with numerous 

 specks of blackish ; legs and feet very pale ash, the 

 latter three inches in width a circumstance which 

 partly accounts for its great power of swimming/ 



The female is a trifle smaller than the male, and 

 less brilliant in colour, while the characteristic mark- 

 ings are not in her so distinct. Still both sexes much 

 resemble each other, and are not distinguishable by 

 the wide difference in plumage so apparent in the 

 majority of wild-fowl. 



Essentially migratory, few birds have a wider 

 habitat, the Arctic regions being their breeding- 

 ground, while the estuaries of the slimy, mud-mar- 

 gined rivers of that portion of North America 



