354 SCAUP DUCK 



Such is the colour of the bird in its perfect state. Young 

 birds vary considerably, some having the head black mixed 

 with gray and purple, others the back dusky with little or no 

 white, and that irregularly dispersed. 



The female has the front and sides of the same white, head 

 and half of the neck blackish brown; breast, spreading round to 

 the back, a dark sooty brown, broadly skirted with whitish; 

 back black, thinly sprinkled with grains of white, vent whitish; 

 wings the same as in the male. 



The windpipe of the male of this species is ef large diameter; 

 the labyrinth similar to some others, though not of the largest 

 kind; it has something of the shape of a single cockle shell; its 

 open side or circular rim, covered with a thin transparent skin. 

 Just before the windpipe enters this, it lessens its diameter at 

 least two-thirds, and assumes a flattish form. 



The Scaup Duck is well known in England. It inhabits Ice- 

 land and the more northern parts of the continent of Europe, 

 Lapland, Sweden, Norway, and Russia. It is also common on 

 the northern shores of Siberia. Is very frequent on the river 

 Ob. Breeds in the north, and migrates southward in winter. 

 It inhabits America as high as Hudson's Bay, and retires from 

 this last place in October. * 



Note. Pennant and Latham state that the male weighs a pound 

 and a half; and the female two ounces more. This is undoubtedly 

 an error, the female being less than the male, and the latter being 

 generally the fattest. Montagu says that the species weighs 

 sometimes as much as thirty-five ounces, which statement comes 

 nearer the truth than that of the foregoing. On the eighth of 

 April, of the present year, (1824,) I shot, on the Delaware, 

 an adult male which weighed two pounds and three quar- 

 ters. I have frequently shot them of two pounds and a half; 

 and on the Chesapeake, and on the coast, they are still heavier. 



In the Delaware there are several favourite feeding grounds 

 of the Blue-bill along the Jersey shore, from Burlington to 



* Latham. 



