THE GADWALL. 195 



260. AXAS STREPERA, LINN. AND WILSON. THE GADWALL. 

 WILSON, PLATE LXXI. FIG. I. EDINBURGH COLLEGE MUSEUM. 



THIS beautiful duck I have met with in very distant 

 parts of the United States, viz. on the Seneca Lake, in 

 New York, about the 20th of October, and at Louisville, 

 on the Ohio, in February. I also shot it near Big Bone 

 Lick, in Kentucky. With its particular manners or 

 breeding place, I am altogether unacquainted. 



The length of this species is twenty inches; extent, 

 thirty-one inches ; bill, two inches long, formed very 

 much like that of the mallard, and of a brownish black ; 

 crown, dusky brown ; rest of the upper half of the neck, 

 brownish white, both thickly speckled with black; 

 lower part of the neck and breast, dusky black, elegantly 

 ornamented with large concentric semicircles of white ; 

 scapulars, waved with lines of white on a dusky ground, 

 but narrower than that of the breast ; primaries, ash ; 

 greater wing-coverts, black, and several of the lesser 

 coverts, immediately above, chestnut red ; speculum, 

 white, bordered below with black, forming three broad 

 bands on the wing of chestnut, black, and white ; belly, 

 dull white ; rump and tail-coverts, black, glossed with 

 green ; tail, tapering, pointed, of a pale brown ash, 

 edged with white ; Hanks, dull white, elegantly waved ; 

 tertials, long, and of a pale brown ; legs, orange red. 



The female 1 have never seen. Latham describes it 

 as follows : " Differs in having the colours on the wings 

 duller, though marked the same as the male ; the breast, 

 reddish brown, spotted with black ; the feathers on the 

 neck and back, edged with pale red ; rump, the same, 

 instead of black ; and those elegant semicircular lines 

 on the neck and breast wholly wanting." 



The flesh of this duck is excellent, and the windpipe 

 of the male is furnished with a large labyrinth. 



The gad wall is very rare in the northern parts of the 

 United States ; is said to inhabit England in winter, 



