(HBd27*) 
BREWER’S DUCK. 
ANAS BREWERI. 
PLATE CCCXXXVIII. Mate. 
Tue beautiful Duck from which I made the drawing copied on the 
plate befere you, was shot on Lake Barataria, in Louisiana, in Feb- 
ruary 1822. It was in company with seven or eight Canvass-back 
Ducks. No other individuals of the species were in sight at the time, 
and all my efforts to procure another have been ineffectual. 
You will see that this curious bird is named in the plate “ Anas 
glocitans,” the descriptions of that species having induced me to con- 
sider it identical with this. But on comparing my drawing with spe- 
cimens in the Museum of the Zoological Society of London, I found 
that the former represents a much larger bird, which, besides, is ditfe- 
rently coloured in some of its parts. The individual figured was a 
male; but I have some doubts whether it had acquired the full beauty 
of its mature plumage, and I considered it at the time as a bird of the 
preceding season. 
In form and proportions this bird is very nearly allied to the Mal- 
lard, from which it differs in having the bill considerably narrower, in 
wanting the recurved feathers of the tail, in having the feet dull 
yellow in place of orange-red, the speculum more green and duller, 
without the white bands of that bird, and in the large patch of light 
red on the side of the head. It may possibly be an accidental variety, 
or a hybrid between that bird and some other species, perhaps the 
Gadwall, to which also it bears a great resemblance. 
Bill nearly as long as the head, higher than broad at the base, de- 
pressed and widened towards the end, rounded :at the tip, the lamellz 
short and numerous, the unguis obovate, curved, the nasal groove ellip- 
tical, the nostrils oblong. 
Head of moderate size, oblong, compressed ; neck rather long and 
slender; body full, depressed. Feet short, stout, placed behind the 
centre of the body; legs bare a little above the joint; tarsus short, a 
little compressed, anteriorly with small scutella, laterally and behind 
