BLACK, OR SURF DUCK. 567 
appear as a regiment of soldiers, being arranged alongside of one 
another, on the borders of the rivers, searching for food, which chiefly 
consists of small fish,* or the eggs of them, and of water insects, 
which they search after by plunging in the bill and part of the head ; 
from time to time trampling with their feet to muddy the water, that 
their prey may be raised from the bottom. In feeding, are said to 
twist the neck in such a manner, tiat the upper part of the bill is 
applied to the ground ;t+ during this, one of them is said to stand sen- 
tinel, and the moment he sounds the alarm, the whole flock take wing. 
This bird, when at rest, stands on one leg, the other being drawn up 
close to the body, with the head placed under the wing on that side of 
the body it stands on, 
“The flesh of these birds is esteemed, pretty good meat, and the 
young thought, by some, equal to that of a partridge;{ but the 
greatest dainty is the tongue, which was esteemed by the ancients an 
exquisite morsel.§ Are sometimes caught young, and brought up 
tame ; but are ever impatient of cold, and in this state will seldom live 
a great while, gradually losing their color, flesh, and appetite ; and 
dying for want of that food, which, in a state of nature at large, they 
were abundantly supplied with.” 
BLACK, OR SURF DUCK.— ANAS PERSPICILLATS!. — 
Fig. 268. — Mare. 
‘La grande Macreuse de la Baye de Hudson, Briss. vi. 425, 30.— La Macreuse a 
large bee, ayy ix. p. 244. Pl. enl. 995.— Edw. pl, 155.— Lath. Syn. iii. p. 
419, — Phil. Trans. Ixii. p. 417. — Peale’s Musern, No, 2788 ; female, 2789. 
OIDEMIA PERSPICILLATA,— STEPHENS. 
Oidemia_perspicillata, Steph. Cont. Sh. Gen, Zool. xii. p. 219.— Oidemia, sub- 
gen. Fuligula perspicillata, Bonap. Ninoy. p. 389,—Oidemia_perspicillata, 
North. Zool. ii. p. 449. pains reg and Seiby, Hust. of Ornith. pl. 13h, 
Tus Duck is peculiar to America,|| and altogether confined to the 
shores and bays of the sea, particularly where the waves roll over the 
sandy beach. Their food consists principally of those small bivalve 
shell fish already described, spout fish, and others that lie in the sand 
* Small shell-fish. — GEsner. 
+ Linnzus, Brisson. 
$ Commonly fat, and accounted delicate. — Davirs’s Hist. of Burbadoes, p. 88. 
The inhabitants of Provence always throw away the flesh, as it tastes fishy, and 
only make use of the feathers as ornaments to other birds at particular entertain- 
ments. — Ditton’s Travels, p. 374. 
§ See Prin. ix.cap.48. 00 
|| One or two instances of this bird being killed on the shores of Great Britain 
have aceurred ; and, as an occasional visitant, it will be figured in the concluding 
Number of Mr. Selby’s Illustrations of British Ornithology. \t is also oceasion- 
ally met with on the continent of Europe, but generally in high latitudes, and, 
though unfrequent elsewhere, it is not entirely confined to America. — Ep, 
