( 826 ) 
RUDDY DUCK. 
FULIGULA RUBIDA, Bonap. 
PLATE CCCXLIIIL Mate, Femate, anp Youne. 
Loox at this plate, Reader, and tell me whether you ever saw a 
greater difference between young and old, or between male and female, 
than is apparent here. You see a fine old male in the livery of the 
breeding season, put on as it were expressly for the purpose of pleas- 
ing the female for a while. The female has never been figured before ; 
nor, I believe, has any representation been given of the young in the 
autumnal plumage. Besides these, you have here the young male at 
the approach of spring. 
The Ruddy Duck is by no means a rare species in the United States ; 
indeed I consider it quite abundant, especially during the winter months, 
in the Peninsula of Florida, where I have shot upwards of forty in one 
morning. In our Eastern Districts they make their appearance early 
in September, and are then plentiful from Eastport to Boston, in 
the markets of which, as well as of New York, I have seen them. 
On the Ohio and Mississippi they arrive about the same period; and I 
have no doubt that they will be found breeding in all our Western 
Territories, as soon as attention is paid to such matters as the search- 
ing for nests with the view of promoting science, or of domesticating 
birds which might prove advantageous to the husbandman. 
My friend Dr Bacuman informs me that this species is becoming 
more abundant every winter in South Carolina. In the month of Feb- 
ruary he has seen a space of the extent of an acre covered with it. Yet 
he has never found one in full summer plumage in that country. It is 
equally fond of salt or brackish and of fresh waters ; and thus we find 
it at times on our sea-coast, bays, and mouths of rivers, as well as on 
lakes and even small ponds in the interior, or on our salt marshes, pro- 
vided they are not surrounded by trees, as it cannot rise high in the 
air unless in an open space of considerable extent. At the time of 
their arrival, they are seen in small flocks, more than from seven to ten 
being seldom found together, until they reach the Southern States, 
where they congregate in great flocks. When they leave their northern 
