SPECIES 14. ANAS PERSPICILLATA. 



BLACK, OR SURF DUCK. 



[Plate LXVIL Fig. 1.] 



Le grande Macreuse de la Baye de Hudson, BRISS. vi, p. 425, SO. 

 La Macreuse a large bee, BUFF, ix, p. 244. PL Enl. 995. 

 EWD. pi. 155. LATH. Syn. in, p. 479, Phil. Trans. LXII, p. 

 417. PEALE'S Museum, No. 2788.* 



THIS Duck is peculiar to America, and altogether confined 

 to the shores and bays of the sea, particularly where the waves 

 roll over the sandy beach. Their food consists principally of 

 those small bivalve shell fish already described, spout fish, and 

 others that lie in the sand near its surface. For these they dive 

 almost constantly, both in the sandy bays and amidst the tumbl- 

 ing surf. They seldom or never visit the salt marshes. They 

 continue on our shores during the winter; and leave us early in 

 May for their breeding places in the north. Their skins are 

 remarkably strong, and their flesh coarse, tasting of fish. They 

 are shy birds, not easily approached, and are common in win- 

 ter along the whole coast from the river St. Lawrence to Flo- 

 rida. 



The length of this species is twenty inches, extent thirty-two 

 inches; the bill is yellowish red, elevated at the base, and mark- 

 ed on the side of the upper mandible with a large square patch 

 of black, preceded by another space of a pearl colour; the part 

 of the bill thus marked swells or projects considerably from the 

 common surface; the nostrils are large and pervious; the sides 

 of the bill broadly serrated or toothed; both mandibles are fur- 

 nished with a nail at the extremity; irides white, or very pale 



* dnas perspicillata, GMEL. Syst. i,p. 524, No. 25. Ind. Orn. p. 847, No. 4?. 

 PEALE'S .Museum, No. 2789, female. 



