THE WINTER DUCK. 
Tae Lax Huron Scorzmr. 
Fuligula bimaculata? Canard @hiver. 
This curious and interesting duck is not described in 
any book of natural history, relating to the birds of the 
United States of North America; nor, so far as I can 
ascertain, is it mentioned or named in any general or 
local work of ornithology, unless it may possibly occur 
in Richardson’s Fauna borealt Americana, which I have 
not had an opportunity of consulting. 
It certainly is not to be found either in Audubon or 
Bonaparte, much less in Wilson; nor could the: latter 
be expected to have known it, since in his day the 
regions which it frequents were scarcely discovered, and 
at the best visited only by rude frontiersmen and voya- 
geurs, or coureurs des bois, who are not expected to take 
much note of generic or specific distinctions among the 
varieties of game, which is regarded by them as little 
more than food. 
It is quite certain, however, that this fine duck is now 
at least fully entitled to a place in the Fawna of the 
