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PIED DUCK. 



+FuLIGULA LABRADORA, Lath. 

 PLATE CCCC— Male and Female. 



Although no birds of this species occurred to me when I was in Labrador, 

 my son, John Woodhottse, and the young friends who accompanied him on 

 the 2Sth of July, 1S33, to Blanc Sablon, found, placed on the top of the low 

 tangled fir-bushes, several deserted nests, which from the report of the Eng- 

 lish clerk of the fishing establishment there, we learned to belong to the 

 Pied Duck. They had much the appearance of those of the Eider Duck, 

 being very large, formed externally of fir twigs, internally of dried grass, 

 and lined with down. It would thus seem that the Pied Duck breeds earlier 

 than most of its tribe. It is surprising that this species is not mentioned by 

 Dr. Richardson in the Fauna Boreali-Americana, as it is a very hardy bird, 

 and is met with along the coasts of Nova Scotia, Maine, and Massachusetts, 

 during the most severe cold of winter. My friend Professor MacCulloch 

 of Pictou, has procured several in his immediate neighbourhood; and the 

 Honourable Daniel Webster of Boston sent me a fine pair killed by him- 

 self, on the Vineyard Islands, on the coast of Massachusetts, from which I 

 made the drawing for the plate before you. The female has not, I believe, 

 been hitherto figured; yet the one represented was not an old bird. 



The range of this species along our shores does not extend farther south- 

 ward than Chesapeake Bay, where I have seen some near the influx of the 

 St. James river. I have also met with several in the Baltimore market. 

 Along the coast of New Jersey and Long Island it occurs in greater or less 

 number every year. It also at times enters the Delaware river, and ascends 

 that stream at least as far as Philadelphia. A bird-stuffer whom I knew at 

 Camden had many fine specimens, all of which he had procured by baiting- 

 fish-hooks with the common mussel, on a "trot-line" sunk a few feet be- 

 neath the surface, but on which he never found one alive, on account of the 

 manner in which these Ducks dive and flounder when securely hooked. All 

 the specimens which I saw with this person, male and female, were in per- 

 fect plumage; and I have not enjoyed opportunities of seeing the changes 

 which this species undergoes. 



The Pied Duck seems to be a truly marine bird, seldom entering rivers 



Vol. VI. 45 



