110 
THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY 
have figured bears to him. Having thought thus much 
necessary on this disputed point, I leave each to form his 
own opinion on the facts and reasoning produced. 
GOLDEN-EYE. 
ANAS CLANG ULA. 
[Plate X.] 
Le Garrot, Briss. vi. p. 416. 27. pi. 37. fig. 2. — Buff, 
ix. p. 222. — Arct. Zool. No. 486. — Lath. Syn. iii. 
p. 535. — Le Garrot , PI. Enl. 802. — Morrillon, Arct. 
Zool. n. p. 300. F. — Br. Zool. No. 276, 277. — Lath. 
Supp. ii. p. 535, No. 26, — Ind. Orn. p. 867, No. 87; 
A. glancion, Id. p. 868, No. 8S. — Gmel. Syst. i. p. 
523, No. 23; Id. p. 525, No. 26. — Temm. Man.d’ O) n. 
I. p. 870. — Bewick, ii. p. 330. — J. Doughty’s Col- 
lection. 
This Duck is well known in Europe, and in various 
regions of the United States, both along the seacoast and 
about the lakes and rivers of the interior. It associates in 
small parties, and may easily be known by the vigorous 
whistling of its 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 shell 
fish, 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 our neck is somewhat 
tumid, and of a dark green with violet reflections, marked 
near the corner of the mouth with an oval spot of white; 
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 exterior edge of the 
inner one broadly finned; sides of the bill obliquely den- 
tated; tongue covered above with a fine thick velvetty 
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 white; 
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 cinerous, 
mixed with whitish; back and scapulars dusky, tipt with 
brown; feet dull orange; across the vent a band of cine- 
rous; tongue covered with the same velvetty down as the 
male. 
The young birds of the first season very much resemble 
the females; but may generally be distinguished by the 
white spot, or at least its rudiments, which marks the cor- 
ner of the mouth. Yet, in some cases, even this is variable, 
both old and young male birds occasionally wanting the spot 
From an examination of many individuals of this species 
of both sexes, I have very little doubt that the Morillon of 
English writers ( Anas glaucion ) is nothing more than the 
young male of the Golden-eye. 
The conformation of the trachea, or windpipe of the 
male of this species, is singular. Nearly about its middle 
it swells out to at least five times its common diameter, the 
concentric hoops or rings, of which this part is formed, fall- 
ing obliquely into one another when the windpipe is relax- 
ed; but when stretched, this part swells out to its full size, 
rings being then drawn apart; this expansion extends for 
about three inches; three more below this it again forms 
itself into a hard cartilaginous shell, of an irregular figure, 
and nearly as large as a walnut; from the bottom of this 
labyrinth, as it has been called, the trachea branches off to 
the two lobes of the lungs; that branch which goes to the 
left lobe being three times the diameter of the right. The 
female has nothing of all this. The intestines measure five 
feet in length, and are large and thick. 
I have examined many individuals of this species, of 
both sexes and in various stages of colour, and can therefore 
affirm, with certainty, that the foregoing descriptions are 
correct. Europeans have differed greatly in their accounts 
of this bird, from finding males in the same garb as the 
females; and other full plumaged males destitute of the 
spot of white on the cheek; but all these individuals bear 
such evident marks of belonging to one peculiar species, 
that no judicious naturalist, with all these varieties before 
him, can long hesitate to pronounce them the same. 
