BUFFEL-HEADED DUCK. 3(39 



first quill longest; secondaries short, broad, rounded, the inner elongated, 

 lanceolate, and decurved, as are the scapulars. Tail rather short, pointed, 

 of fourteen feathers. 



Bill dull greyish-blue, as are the feet, the claws yellowish-grey. The 

 upper part of the head and a broad band surrounding the neck are white; 

 the throat; some feathers around the eye are black; a light green patch in 

 the loral space, and a transverse patch of the same on the nape, margined 

 behind and laterally with black. A broad band on the neck and the whole 

 of the back is velvet-black, with green reflections; the smaller wing-coverts 

 white; the secondary coverts bluish-black, terminating in a broad white 

 band; the elongated secondaries and scapulars with the inner web white, the 

 outer black, with blue reflections; the primaries and coverts brownish-black, 

 the tail black, as are the lower tail-coverts and abdomen; the rest of the 

 lower parts deep reddish-buff, fading toward the shoulders and neck into 

 pure white; there is a bluish-black spot on each side of the lower part of the 

 neck anterior to the wing. 



Length to end of tail 16 inches; bill along the ridge T 9 2; wing from flexure 

 8^; tail 4; tarsus 1^-; inner toe and claw l"|; middle toe and claw 2^; outer 

 toe and claw 2i; breadth of unguis of upper mandible §; breadth of bill at 

 base -§ . 



BUFFEL-HEADED DUCK. 



^Fuligula albeola, Linn. 

 PLATE CCCCVIIL— Male and Female. 



There are no portions of the Union on the waters of which this beautiful 

 miniature of the Golden-eye Duck is not to be found, either during the 

 autumnal months or in winter; and, therefore, to point out any particular 

 district as more or less favoured by its transient visits would be useless. 

 The miller's dam is ornamented by its presence; the secluded creeks of the 

 Middle States are equally favoured by it as the stagnant bayous and lakes of 

 Lower Louisiana; in the Carolinas and on the Ohio, it is not less frequent; 

 it being known in these different districts by the names of Spirit Duck, 



Vol. VI. 51 



