220 AMEKICAN GAME. 



some stand perpendicular to the back. They are all 

 adorned with an ample crest, pendulous, and running 

 down the back of the neck. They are easily domesti- 

 cated, but I do not know that they have been yet of 

 much utility in this state, being more kept on account 

 of their beauty, and few have been introduced except to 

 our menageries ; with a 'little trouble at first, they might 

 form a much more common ornament about our artificial 

 pieces of water. It is the only form of a Tree Duck 

 common to this continent ; in other countries there are, 

 however, two or three others of very great importance 

 in the natural system, whose structure and habits have 

 yet been almost entirely overlooked or lost sight of. 

 These seem to range principally over India, and more 

 sparingly in Africa ; and the Summer Duck is the soli- 

 tary instance, the United States the nearly extreme 

 limit, of its own peculiarities in this division of the 

 world." 



"With this note I close this paper, expressing only the 

 hope that the bird will become more largely domestica- 

 ted ; as no more beautiful adornment can be conceived 

 to the parks and shrubberies of gentlemen, such more 

 especially as possess the advantages of small inland 

 rivulets, or pieces of ornamental water, whether natural 

 or artificial. 



