49 



BLACK, OR SURF DUCK. 

 A^AS PEESPICILLATA. 

 [Plate LXVII.— Fig. 1.] 



Le grande Maereiise de la Baye de Hudson^ Briss. YI, p. 425, 30.— La Macreiise d large hcc, Buff. 

 IX, p. 244.— PZ. EnL 995.— -Edw. pi. 155.— Lath. Syn. Ill, p. h79.—Phil. Trans. LXII, p. 417. 

 — Peaie's Museum f JVo. 2788. 



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 shell fish 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 con- 

 tinue on our shores during the winter; and leave us early in May 

 for their breeding places in the north. Their skins are remarka- 

 bly strong, and their flesh coarse, tasting of fish. They are shy 

 birds, not easily approached, and are common in winter along tbe 

 whole coast from the river St. Lawrence 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 color; the part of the 

 bill thus marked swells or projects considerably from the common 

 surface; the nostrils are large and pervious; the sides of the bill 

 broadly serrated or toothed; both mandibles are furnished with a 

 nail at the extremity; irides white, or very pale cream; whole 

 plumage a shining black, marked on the crown and hind head 

 with two triangular spaces of pure white; the plumage on both 



yOL. VIII. N 



