226 ANAS FERINA. 



of the same grass, the latter eating only the roots ; its 

 flesh is very little inferior, and it is often sold in our 

 markets for the canvass-back to those unacquainted 

 with the characteristic marks of each. Anxious as I 

 am to determine precisely whether this species be the 

 red-headed wigeon, pochard, or dun bird* of England, 

 I have not been able to ascertain the point to my own 

 satisfaction, though I think it very probably the same, 

 the size, extent, and general description of the pochard, 

 agreeing pretty nearly with this. 



The red-head is twenty inches in length, and two 

 feet six inches in extent; bill, dark slate, sometimes 

 black, two inches long, and seven eighths of an inch 

 thick at the base, furnished with a large broad nail at 

 the extremity ; irides, flame coloured ; plumage of the 

 head long, velvety, and inflated, running high above the 

 base of the bill ; head, and about two inches of the neck, 

 deep glossy reddish chestnut ; rest of the neck and 

 upper part of the breast, black, spreading round to the 

 back ; belly, white, becoming dusky towards the vent 

 by closely marked undulating lines of black ; back and 

 scapulars, bluish white, rendered gray by numerous 

 transverse waving lines of black ; lesser wing-coverts, 

 brownish ash; wing-quills, very pale slate, dusky at the 

 tips ; lower part of the back and sides under the wings, 

 brownish black, crossed with regular zigzag lines of 

 whitish ; vent, rump, tail, and tail-coverts, black ; legs 

 and feet, dark ash. 



The female has the upper part of the head dusky 

 brown, rest of the head and part of the neck, a light 

 sooty brown; upper part of the breast, ashy brown, 

 broadly skirted with whitish ; back, dark ash, with 

 little or no appearance of white pencilling; wings, bill, 

 and feet nearly alike in both sexes. 



This duck is sometimes met with in the rivers of 

 North and South Carolina, and also in those of Jersey 

 and New York, but generally in fresh water, and usually 



* Local names given to one and the same duck. It is also called 

 the poker. 



