WILD FOWL. 



91 



twenty-two inches in extent : the bill is broad at the tip, the 

 under mandible much narrower, and both of a rich light-blue ; 

 nostrils small, placed in the middle of the bill ; cheeks and 

 chin white; front, crown, and back part of the neck, down 

 nearly to the back, black ; rest of the neck, whole back, scapu- 

 lars, flanks, and tail coverts, deep reddish-brown, the color of 

 bright mahogany ; wings, plain pale drab, darkest at the points ; 

 tail black, greatly tapering, containing eighteen narrow-pointed 

 featliers; the plumage of the breast and upper part of the neck 

 is of a remarkable kind, being dusky olive at bottom, ending in 

 hard bristly points, of a silvery-gray, very much resembling the 

 hair of some kinds of seal-skins ; all these are thickly marked 

 with transverse curving lines of deep brown ; belly and vent 

 silver-gray, thickly crossed with dusky olive ; under tail coverts 

 white ; legs and feet ash-colored. 



" Female Ruddy Duck. — This is nearly of the same size as 

 the male ; the front, lores and crown deep blackish-brown ; bill 

 as in the male, very broad at the extremity and largely toothed 

 on the sides, of the same rich blue ; cheeks a dull cream ; neck 

 plain dull drab, sprinkled about the auriculars with blackish ; 

 lower part of the neck and breast variegated with gray, ash, and 

 reddish-brown ; the reddish dies off towards the belly, leaving 

 this last of a dull white, shaded with dusky ash ; wings as in 

 the male ; tail brown ; scapulars dusky brown, thickly sprinkled 

 with whitish, giving them a gray appearance ; legs ash. 



" A particular character of this species is its tapering, sharp- 

 pointed tail, the feathers of which are very narrow ; the body is 

 short ; the bill very nearly as broad as some of those called 

 Shovellers ; the lower mandible much narrower than the 

 upper." — Wilson's American Ornithology. 



This bird I have never myself been so fortunate as to fall in 

 with, as it is, more particularly in these regions, a sea Duck, 

 which I am less given to pursuing than the vai'ious species of 

 upland game ; and as it is shot more frequently to the eastward 

 of Montauk Point and Boston Bay, than on the lagoons of 



