BLACK OR SURF DUCK. 



465 



BLACK OE SURF DUCK. {Anas perspicillata.) 



PLATE LX VII.— Fig. 2, Male. 



La Grande Macreuse de la Baye de Hudson, Briss. vi. 425, 30. — La Macreuse a, 

 large bee, Buff. ix. p. 244, PL enl. 995.— Edw. pi. 155.— Lath. Syn. iii. p. 

 479.— Phil. Trans, lxii. p. 417.— Peak's Museum, No. 2788; female, 2789. 



01 DEM I A PERSPICILLA TA. —Stephens. 



Oidemia perspicillata, Steph. Cord. Sh. Gen. Zool. xii. p. 219.— Oidemia, subgen. 

 Fuligula perspicillata, Bonap. Si/nop. p. 389.— Oidemia perspicillata, North. 

 Zool. ii. p. 449. —Jard. and Selby, Illust. of Ornith. pi. 138. 



This 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 shellfish already described, spout-fish, and 

 others that lie in the sand near its surface. For these they 

 dive almost constantly, both in the sandy bays and amidst the 

 tumbling surf. They seldom or never visit the salt marshes. 

 They continue on our shores during the winter, and leave us 

 early in May for their breeding places in the north. Their 

 skins are remarkably strong, and their flesh coarse, tasting of 

 fish. They are shy birds, not easily approached, and are com- 

 mon in winter along the whole coast, from the river St Law- 

 rence to Florida. 



The length of this species is twenty inches ; extent, thirty- 

 two inches ; the bill is yellowish red, elevated at the base, and 

 marked on the side of the upper mandible with a large square 

 patch of black, preceded by another space of a pearl colour ; 

 the part of the bill thus marked swells or projects consider- 



* One or two instances of this bird being killed on the shores of 

 Great Britain have occurred ; and, as an occasional visitant, it will be 

 figured in the concluding number of Mr Selby's " Illustrations of British 

 Ornithology." It is also occasionally met with on the comment of 

 Europe, but generally in high latitudes, and though unfrequent else- 

 where, it is not entirely confined to America. — Ed. 



VOL. II. 2 G 



