144 SEA FOWL IN NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 



bills have become short and high, their forms more robust, necks 

 shorter, and bodies losing the long oval form of the typical black 

 duck, and becoming round and humped, and, the hind toe lobu- 

 lated. With the exception of the Canvasback, of which I have 

 noted two specimens, and the Ringneck (F. collaris), the only- 

 specimens of which I have noted were kept alive by Mr. Downs, 

 and I think were originally young taken in the eastern part 

 of the Province, the other members of this group may be called 

 common. The scaups, bluebills or blackheads, as they are 

 variously called, come into the Bay of Fundy about the last of 

 October and leave us in April. The specimens noted by me were 

 all marilla, but a mounted specimen in Halifax Museum of affinis 

 shows both forms to be present with us. The next group, which 

 Dr. Baird has justly united in his new genus, Bucephala, the 

 goldeneye and buffleheads, are common, coming to the Bay of 

 Fundy in October and leaving us in April. Though not so nu- 

 merous as the common goldeneye, yet in some seasons the Ice- 

 land species may be said to be plenty, in others rare. After a 

 careful study of many specimens of each, both males and females 

 and immature birds, I have been enabled to generalise that both 

 males have the violet wash in the green of the head, though 

 Richardson makes it typical in the Iceland species ; that both 

 females have the snuff-yellow wash upon their heads, which my 

 friend Mr. Boardman makes typical in the female Iceland : that 

 there is a tendency in both females for the brown to run to 

 dingy duck green on their heads, and that the party coloured bills 

 in both females are very few in comparison with leaden coloured 

 ones ; that it appears in some young males, and their fewness can 

 only be accounted for by considering them transient and becom- 

 ing effaced by adult age. The anatomical difference in the 

 trachea of the males (paper read March 12, 1878), must prove 

 them distinct species. Before we notice the next group of purely 

 pelagic duck, which never seek fresh water, are still shorter and 

 rounder in figure, legs further behind, much better divers, but 

 scarcely walkers at all, we may note that both these groups of 

 pure freshwater fowl, and the intermediate one of partly fresh 

 and sea fowl, although they do no doubt perform the semi-an- 



