478 GOLDEN-EYE. 



wings as it passes through the air. It swims and dives well, 

 but seldom walks on shore, and then in a waddling, awkward 

 manner. Feeding chiefly on shellfish, small fry, &c, their 

 flesh is less esteemed than that of the preceding. In the 

 United States, they are only winter visitors, leaving us again 

 in the month of April, being then on their passage to the north 

 to breed. They are said to build, like the wood-duck, in hollow 

 trees. 



The golden-eye is nineteen inches long, and twenty-nine 

 in extent, and weighs on an average about two pounds ; the 

 bill is black, short, rising considerably up in the forehead ; the 

 plumage of the head and part of the neck is somewhat tumid, 

 and of a dark green, with violet reflections, marked near the 

 corner of the mouth with an oval spot of Avhite ; the irides are 

 golden yellow ; rest of the neck, breast, and whole lower parts, 

 white, except the flanks, which are dusky ; back and wings, 

 black ; over the latter a broad bed of white extends from the 

 middle of the lesser coverts to the extremity of the secondaries ; 

 the exterior scapulars are also white ; tail, hoary brown ; rump 

 and tail-coverts, black ; legs and toes, reddish orange ; webs 

 very large, and of a dark purplish brown ; hind toe and exte- 

 rior edge of the inner one, broadly finned ; sides of the bill, 

 obliquely dentated ; tongue, covered above with a fine thick 

 velvety down, of a whitish colour. 



The full plumaged female is seventeen inches in length, and 

 twenty-seven inches in extent ; bill, brown, orange near the tip ; 

 head and part of the neck, brown, or very dark drab, bounded 

 below by a ring of white; below that, the neck is ash, tipt 

 with white ; rest of the lower parts, wdiite ; wings, dusky, six 

 of the secondaries and their greater coverts, pure white, except 

 the tips of the last, which are touched with dusky spots ; rest 

 of the wing-coverts, cinereous mixed with whitish ; back and 



The bases of the greater coverts in the golden-eye are black ; but they 

 are concealed, and do not form the black band so conspicuous in this 

 species." The total length of a male brought home by the Expedition 

 was twenty-two inches in length. — Ed. 



