SCOTER DUCK. 331 



eat them on those days on which they are forbidden by their 

 religion the use of animal food, fish excepted; these birds, and 

 a few others of the same fishy flavour, having been exempted 

 from the interdict, on the supposition of their being cold blood- 

 ed, and partaking of the nature of fish.* 



The Scoter abounds in Lapland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, 

 and Siberia. It was also found by Osbeck, between the islands 

 of Java and St. Paul, Lat. 30 and 34, in the month of June.t 



This species is twenty-one inches in length, and thirty-four 

 in extent, and is easily distinguished from all other Ducks .by 

 the peculiar form of its bill, which has at the base a large ele- 

 vated knob, of a red colour, divided by a narrow line of yellow, 

 which spreads over the middle of the upper mandible, reaching 

 nearly to its extremity, the edges and lower mandible are black ; 

 the eyelid is yellow, iris dark hazel; the whole plumage is 

 black, inclining to purple on the head and neck; legs and feet 

 reddish. 



The female has little or nothing of the knob on the bill; her 

 plumage above a sooty brown, and below of a grayish white. 



* Bewick. t Voy. i, p. 120. 



