TUFTED DUCK. 357 



In young birds the head and upper part of the neck are pur- 

 plish brown; in some the chestnut ring on the fore part of the 

 middle of the neck is obscure, in others very rich and glossy, 

 and in one or two specimens which I have seen it is altogether 

 wanting. The back is in some instances destitute of the fine 

 powdered particles of white; while in others these markings are 

 large and thickly interspersed. 



The specimen from which the drawing was taken, was shot 

 on the Delaware on the tenth of March, and presented to me 

 by Dr. S. B. Smith of this city. On dissection it proved to be 

 a male, and was exceedingly fat and tender. Almost every spe- 

 cimen I have since met with has been in nearly the same state; 

 so that I cannot avoid thinking this species equal to most others 

 for the table, and greatly superior to many. 



Note. It is remarkable that our author should not have ob- 

 served the difference between this species and the fuligula of 

 Europe; and still more worthy of note that Mr. Temminck, 

 whose powers of discrimination are unusually acute, should also 

 have been misled by the opinions of others, and concluded, 

 with Wilson, that the Tufted Duck figured in our plate was of 

 the same species as the Tufted Duck of Europe. The only 

 apology which we can make for our author is, that he had 

 never had an opportunity of examining a specimen of the fuli- 

 gula; otherwise the specific differences of the two would have 

 been obvious at the first glance. The bill of the fuligula has 

 not those white bands or markings which are so conspicuous in 

 our bird, its neck is also destitute of the chestnut collar; the 

 speculum of the former is pure white, that of the latter is pale 

 ash; and, what is a still more striking characteristic, its head is 

 merely tufted, while the fuligula' 's is ornamented with a pend- 

 ent crest, of two inches in length. 



The credit of having been the first to publicly announce our 

 bird as a new species belongs to Mr. Charles Bonaparte, who, 

 in the publication quoted at the head of this article, has given 



