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Genus NYROCA. 



Anas apud Giildenstadt, Nov. Comm. Petrop. xiv. p. 403 (1769). 



AytMa apud Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 564. 



Nyroca, Fleming, Phil, of Zool. ii. p. 260 (1822). 



Fuligula apud Stephens in Shaw's Gen. Zool. xii. p. 201 (1824). 



This genus contains only two species — Nyroca ferruginea, which inhabits the Palsearctic, 

 Ethiopian, and Oriental Regions (its range being given in the following article), and Nyroca 

 australis, Gould, which inhabits Australia. These Ducks frequent larger or smaller inland 

 sheets of water, rivers, and streams, and also quiet and secluded bays and inlets of the sea 

 and lagoons. They are somewhat shy and wary, fly swiftly and well, are excellent divers, 

 usually procuring their food beneath the surface of the water. They feed on small mollusca, 

 crustaceans, aquatic plants, insects, &c. ; but they are said not to eat fish, as do many of their 

 allies. They nest close to the water, scratching a hole in the ground under a bush, or selecting 

 a convenient tussock of grass, the nest itself being a collection of down intermixed with a few 

 grass-straws &c, and deposit numerous greyish or dull yellowish-buff eggs. 



Nyroca ferruginea, the type of the genus, has the bill rather longer than the head, about as 

 broad as high at the base, depressed, and widening towards the tip, which is rounded ; unguis 

 moderate, oval, decurved ; nostrils small, oval, placed in the lower anterior portion of the nasal 

 sinus; trachea with the tube much expanded in the middle, and again contracted above the 

 inferior larynx, the latter partly osseous, partly membranous ; wings rather short, pointed, the 

 first quill longest ; tail very short, much graduated ; legs short, placed far aft ; tarsus compressed, 

 anteriorly scutellate ; hind toe slender but broadly lobed, anterior toes nearly twice as long as 

 the tarsus ; claws small, slender, slightly curved, acute. 



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