91 



PIED DUCK. 



ANAS LABRADOEA. 

 [Plate LXIX.— Fig. 6.] 



Arct. Zool. JS^o. 488.— Lath. Syn, III, j7. 497.— Peace's Museum, JV'o. 2858. 



THIS is rather a scarce species on our coasts, and is never 

 met with on fresh water lakes or rivers. It is called by some gun- 

 ners the Sand Shoal Duck, from its habit of frequenting sand bars. 

 Its principal food appears to be shell fish, which it procures by- 

 diving. The flesh is dry, and partakes considerably of the nature 

 of its food. It is only seen here during winter ; most commonly 

 early in the month of March a few are observed in our market. 

 Of their particular manners, place, or mode of breeding nothing 

 more is known. Latham observes that a pair in the possession of 

 Sir Joseph Banks were brought from Labrador. Having myself 

 had frequent opportunities of examining both sexes of these birds, 

 I find that, like most others, they are subject when young to a 

 progressive change of color. The full plumaged male is as fol- 

 lows : length twenty inches, extent twenty nine inches ; the base 

 of the bill, and edges of both mandibles for two thirds of their 

 length, are of a pale orange color, the rest black, towards the ex- 

 tremitv it widens a little in the manner of the Shovellers, the sides 

 there having the singularity of being only a soft, loose, pendulous 

 skin; irides dark hazel; head and half of the neck white, marked 

 along the crown to the hind head with a stripe of black; the plu- 

 mage of the cheeks is of a peculiar bristly nature at the points, 

 and round the neck passes a collar of black, which spreads over 

 the back, rump, and tail coverts; below this color the upper part 

 of the breast is white, extending itself over the whole scapulars. 



