606 CANNASS-BACK DUCK. 
rivers produce. At our_public dinners, hotels, and particular enter-: 
tainments, the Canvass-Backs are universal favorites, They not only 
grace but dignify the table, and their very name conveys to the im- 
agination of the eager epicure the most comfortable and exhilarating 
idéas. Hence, on such occasions, it has not been uncommon to pay” 
from one to three dollars a pair for these Ducks; and, indeed, at 
such times, if they can,.they must be had, whatever may be the price. 
~ The Canvass-Back will feed readily on grain, especially wheat, and. 
may be decoyed to particular places by Daiting them with that grain 
for several successive days. Some few years since, a vessel loaded. 
with wheat was wrecked near the entrance of Great Egg Harbor, in 
the autumn, and went to pieces. The wheat floated out in vast: quan- . 
tities, and the whole ‘surface of the bay was in a few days covered _ 
with Ducks of a kind altogether unknown to the people of. that 
quarter. The gunners of the neighbofhood collected in boats, in 
every direction, shooting them; and so’ successful were they, that, as 
Mr. Beasley informs me, two hundred and forty were killed in one 
day, and sold among the neighbors, at twelve and a half cents apiece, 
without the feathers. ‘The wounded ones were generally abandoned,.. 
as being too difficult to be come up with. They continued about for 
three weelis, and during the greater part of that time a continual can- 
nonading was heard from every quarter. The gunners called them 
‘Sea Ducks. They were all Canvass-Backs, at that time on their way 
from the north, when this floating feast attracted their attention, and 
for a while arrested them in their course. A pair of these very Ducks: 
I myself bought in Philadelphia market at the time, from an Egg 
Harbor gunner, and never met with their superior, either’in weight or 
excellence of flesh. When it was known among those people the loss 
they had sustained in selling for twenty-five cents what would have 
brought them from a dollar to a dollar and a half. per pair, universal 
surprise and regret were naturally enough excited. : 
The Canvass-Back is two feet long, and three feet in extent, and, 
when in good order, weighs three pounds; the bill is large, rising 
high in the head, three inches in length, and one inch and three 
eighths thick at the base, of a glossy black; eye, very small; irides, 
dark red; cheeks and fore part of the head, blackish brown; -rest of 
‘the head and greater part of the neck, bright glossy reddish chestnut, 
ending in a broad space of black that covers the upper part of the 
breast, and spreads round to the back; back, scapulars, and tertials, 
white, faintly marked with an infinite number of transverse, waving 
lines or points, as if done with a pencil; whole lower parts of the 
breast, also the belly, white, slightly pencilled in the seme manner, 
scarcely perceptible on the breast, pretty thick towards the vent; 
wing-coverts, gray, with numerous specks of blackish; primaries and 
secondaries, pale slate, two or three of the latter of which nearest the 
body are finely edged with deep velvety black, the former dusky at 
the tips ; tail, very short, pointed, consisting of fourteen feathers of a 
hoary brown ; vent and tail-coverts, black ; lining of the wing, white : 
legs and feet, very pale ash, the latter.three incnes in width -—a ciz- 
cumstance which partly accounts for its great powers of swimming. ; 
_ The female is somewhat less than the male, and weighs two pounds 
and three quarters ; the crown is blackish brown; cheeks and throat, 
