Steamer and Labrador Ducks 195 



distinguished from the last by the purplish blue on the head and throat and by 

 the much larger and differently shaped white patch at the base of the bill, is 

 more northern in distribution, being found in summer from the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado northward, reaching Greenland 

 and Iceland; its habits are similar to those of its near relative. 



Buffle-bead. Very closely related, and indeed often placed in the same 

 genus with the last, is the Buffle-head, Butter-ball, or Spirit Duck (Charito- 

 netta albeola), a small North American species about fifteen inches in length, 

 which may be distinguished by the presence of a broad white patch which 

 passes around the back of the head 

 from eye to eye. As an expert 

 diver is perhaps not exceeded; its 

 ability to disappear at the flash of 

 a gun before the charge of shot 

 reaches it has given rise to its name 

 of Spirit-Duck. Like the Golden- 

 eye it nests in hollow stumps and 

 trees, laying from six to twelve light 

 buff-colored eggs. 



Old Squaw. Equally well 



marked is the Old Squaw, Old FIG. 65. Buffle-head Duck, Charitonetta albeola. 



Wife, or South Southerly (Harelda 



hy emails), which may be known among other characters by the very long, nar- 

 row middle tail-feathers, which are held at an angle of 60 degrees when the bird 

 is sitting on the water. It is found throughout Arctic Europe, Asia, and 

 North America, ranging south in winter to southern Europe, central Asia, and 

 China, and in the New World nearly across the United States. It is an ex- 

 tremely swift flyer and it is also a very noisy bird, continually scolding or "talking." 



Steamer-Duck. In the southern part of South America, about the Straits 

 of Magellan, the Falkland Islands, and the Chilean coast, is a very curious Duck 

 known as the Steamer-Duck (Tachyeres clnereus], so called from its peculiar 

 method of locomotion. It is a large sea Duck, some thirty inches in length, 

 mainly gray throughout, with a reddish patch on the throat, and white secondaries. 

 When young this bird possesses the power of flight, but this faculty is gradually 

 lost as the body increases in size and weight to such an extent, owing to the 

 deposition of mineral matter in the bones and other causes, that it gradually 

 abandons the habit of flight, and it paddles itself around with rapid movements 

 of its wings, much after the manner of a side-wheel steamer, whence, of course, 

 its name. It moves with astonishing rapidity, and this combined "with its 

 diving powers are sufficient to preserve it from threatened danger." 



Labrador Duck. With a melancholy history equal almost to that of the 

 Great Auk is the handsome Labrador or Pied Duck (Camptolalmus labradorius), 

 which is now believed to be extinct, the last individual so far as known having 

 been killed in 1878. It was a large, powerful Duck, from eighteen to twenty- 

 three inches long, the male with the head, upper neck, upper breast, sides, and 



