110 



RED-HEADED DUCK. 



ANAS FERINA? 

 [Plate LXX.— Fig. 6.] 



, Pe ale's Museum, Jfo, 2710. 



THIS is a common associate of the Canvas-back, frequenting 

 the same places, and feeding on the stems of the same grass, the 

 latter eating only the roots ; its flesh is very little inferior, and it 

 is often sold in our markets for the Canvas-back, to those unac- 

 quainted with the characteristic marks of each. Anxious as I am 

 to determine precisely whether this species be the Red-headed 

 Wigeon, Pochard, or Dun bird^ of England, I have not been able 

 to ascertain the point to my own satisfaction ; though I think it 

 very probably the same, the size, extent, and general description 

 of the Pochard agreeing pretty nearly with this. 



The Red-head is twenty inches in length, and two feet six 

 inches in extent; bill dark slate, sometimes black, two inches 

 long, and seven eighths of an inch thick at the base, furnished 

 with a large broad nail at the extremity; irides flame-colored; 

 plumage of the head long, velvetty, and inflated, running high 

 above the base of the bill ; head, and about two inches of the 

 neck deep glossy reddish chesnut; rest of the neck and upper part 

 of the breast black, spreading round to the back; belly white, be- 

 coming dusky towards the vent by closely marked undulating lines 

 of black ; back and scapulars bluish white, rendered grey by nu- 

 merous transverse waving lines of black ; lesser wing coverts 

 brownish ash; wing quills very pale slate, dusky at, the tips; lower 



* Local naiiies given to one and the same Duck. It is also called the Poker. 



