62 
ANAS FULVIGULA 
Louisiana 
Texas 
It is a common species in Louisiana, and breeds there abundantly (Beyer, 1900). One or two 
observers think it may leave the State in winter, but the evidence overwhelmingly shows that the 
birds are resident in Louisiana as in Texas, since they are met with at all times of the 
year in both States. According to the U.S. Biological Survey the species is found in 
Louisiana from Belle Isle, Abbeville and Lake Arthur west along the littoral of the Gulf of Mexico. 
McAtee (U.S. Biological Survey) says it is a common resident in the Vermilion Bay region and he 
has recorded it from Grand Chenier and Gum Cove, as a winter bird. At Cameron he says it is 
abundant in November and December. In four or five days’ shooting in the Vermilion Bay region 
in January, 1913, I saw hundreds of these birds and shot ten or fifteen. It is important to note 
that so far nearly all records for this State are from the coast. I know of no specific records for the 
northern sections, but Beyer, Allison and Kopman (1907) say that in winter its numbers are largely 
increased and that it may be found on lakes even in the northern part of the State. 
In Texas the present species seems to be abundant all along the coast from the Louisiana boundary 
to the mouth of the Rio Grande (U.S. Biological Survey), but it is absent in the northwestern areas 
of the State. The only interior records are those for Waco and Mason (U.S. Biological 
Survey). Strecker (1912) states that it is very rare in the central areas. On the coast 
it is, as I have said, abundant, from the Louisiana frontier at Sabine (Lloyd, U.S. Biological Survey), 
at Bolivar (U.S. Biological Survey), at Matagorda and at Rockport (McAtee, ibid.), most of these 
being winter records. In the southeastern section, the species is commonly found and is widely dis- 
tributed. It has been taken at San Antonio in summer (Dresser, 1866; U.S. Biological Survey), 
and small flocks of this or the New Mexican Duck were seen near there in winter (N. C. Brown, 
1882), and at Corpus Christi it is common (British Museum; Sennett, 1879). On the Nueces River 
it is a common bird in summer as in winter, and it has been known to breed in this vicinity, as in 
San Patricio, Refugio and other southeastern counties (Strecker, 1912; Lloyd, U.S. Biological 
Survey). These ducks are said to be common also on Padre Isle, in August and in November (Lloyd, 
ibid.), and they have been taken at Point Isabel in May (Sennett, 1879). Merrill (1878) states that 
a few breed at Fort Brown, on the lower Rio Grande, though it does not seem to occur south of the 
Rio Grande, unless the specimen recorded by Emmet (1888), from Chihuahua, Mexico, 
really belongs to this species. Other Texan records for Anas fulvigula are those of 
Howell (U.S. Biological Survey) for High Island, where it was common in February, and of Simmons 
(1915) for Pierce, where the birds were breeding. 
Broadly speaking this is a coastal species, essentially non-migratory, but it may be found to dis- 
perse inland during the breeding season. Its limits in the interior are, however, very imperfectly 
known. 
GENERAL HABITS 
Chihuahua 
Haunts. In Florida, although found throughout the lake regions, this duck is more 
common on or near the coast, on fresh and brackish water. Dr. Thomas Barbour, 
who has done extensive collecting in Florida, noticed it in maximum abundance 
around the edge of the Everglades, often in small pond-holes hollowed out by alliga- 
tors. He found it far less common on Lake Okeechobee, though he saw a few on 
Pelican Bay, at the south end of the lake. At the head of the Pompano Canal, north 
of Miami, and seven or eight miles from the coast, they were more abundant 
than in any other place that he visited. They are birds of the open swamps and so- 
called “bonnet marshes,” where the yellow water-lily, on whose seeds they feed, 
grows in abundance. They are seldom seen on wooded ponds among live oaks, which 
the Carolina Duck (Lampronessa) prefers. Occasional pairs are scattered through 
