SWIMMING BIRDS. 543 
hundred small fishes. In the East Indies, pelicans are 
tamed and used by the natives in fishing, as is the cormorant 
in China, while in early times it was in England. 
The ducks and geese (Lamellircstres) have usually broad 
bills furnished with lamellate, teeth-like projections. The 
feet are palmated, adapted for swimming rapidly. In the 
mergansers the bill is narrow and more strongly toothed. 
The eider duck (Sommateria mollissima) which breeds from 
Labrador around northward to Scotland, plucks its down 
from its breast, building with it a large warm nest under 
low bushes on the sea-coast, where it lays three or four pale 
Fig. 465.—Summer Duck.—From Tenney’s Zoology. 
dull green eggs. The canvas-back (Fuligula vailisneriay . 
feeds, as its specific name implies, on the wild celery ( Val- 
lisneria) on the middle Atlantic coast in winter, whence it 
derives its delicious flavor. The summer duck (Aiz sponsa, 
Fig. 465) breeds in trees. The original source of our do- 
mestic duck is the mallard, or Anas boschas. It is known 
to cross with various other species. Upward of fifty kinds 
of hybrid ducks are recorded, some of which have proved 
to be fertile (Coues). The black duck (Anas obscura) is 
abundant on the shores of Northeastern America, and is fre- 
