Sea and Bay Ducks 



black and white; under parts white, with black waving 

 bars on sides of body and near the tail; speculum, or wing 

 mirror, white. Bill dull blue, broad, and heavy ; dark, slate- 

 colored feet. 



Female — A white space around base of bill, but other fore parts 

 rusty, the rusty feathers edged with buff on the breast; back 

 and shoulders dusky, and the sides dark grayish brown, 

 finely marked with waving white lines; under parts and 

 speculum white. 



^a«^^— North America at large; nesting inland, chiefly from 

 Manitoba northward; winters from Long Island to South 

 America. 



Season — Common spring and autumn migrant, and winter resi- 

 dent south of New England and the Great Lakes. 



If the number of popular names that get attached to a bird is 

 an indication of man's intimacy with it, then the American scaup 

 is among the most familiar game birds on the continent. It is still 

 a mooted question whether the word scaup refers to the broken 

 shell fish which this duck feeds upon when wild celery, insects, 

 and fry are not accessible, or to the harsh, discordant scaup it 

 utters, but which most people think sounds more like quauch. Its 

 broad, bluish bill, its glossy black head, its not unique habit of 

 living in large flocks, its readiness to dive under a raft rather 

 than swim around one, and its awkward, shuffling gait on land, 

 where it rarely ventures, make up the sum of its eccentricities set 

 forth in its nicknames. 



Gunners in the west and on the Atlantic shores from Long 

 Island southward, especially in the Chesapeake, where wild 

 celery abounds, find the bluebills among the most inveterate 

 divers : they plunge for food or to escape danger, loon fashion, 

 and when wounded have been known to cling to a rock or tuft 

 of sedges under water with an agonized grip that even death did 

 not unfasten. They do not rise with ease from the surface of the 

 water, which doubtless often makes diving a safer resort than 

 flight. Audubon spoke of their "laborious flight;" but when 

 once fairly launched in the aif, their wings set in rigid curves, 

 they rush through the sky with a hissing sound and a rate of 

 speed that no amateur marksman ever estimates correctly. They 

 are high flyers, these bluebills ; and as they come swiftly wind- 

 ing downward to rest upon the bays of the seacoast or large 

 bodies of inland waters, they seem to drop from the very clouds. 



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