WILD FOWL 
General distribution . — ^The Canada goose breeds from Arctic North 
America southwards to the Northern United States, migrating in winter 
to Mexico, Texas and Florida, and occasionally to Bermuda and Jamaica. 
In the British Isles it has been domesticated for more than two centuries, 
and in many parts birds are occasionally shot. For this reason it has 
been included among the British geese, but there is no evidence to show 
that wild American birds have ever visited this country. 
THE SURFACE-FEEDING DUCKS 
T he surface -feeding ducks are characterized by having the 
hind toe narrowly lobed (see fig. 2, p. 290), and the bill 
lengthened and depressed towards the tip, the depth at the 
base being half, or less than half, the total length measured from 
the feathering on the forehead to the tip (see fig. 6, p. 290). 
They may be divided into two groups, the sheld-ducks and 
the true ducks. 
The former are distinguished by having the plumage almost alike in 
both sexes, and by their longer legs, which enable them to walk with greater 
ease, and by their uniform chestnut, buff or whitish -buff under tail-coverts, 
which are never spotted with brown or black. 
In the true ducks the plumage is entirely different in the two sexes 
during the greater part of the year, except when the male assumes the 
eclipse-plumage after the breeding-season; the legs are shorter and the 
under tail -coverts are black, or whitish spotted with brown or black. All 
the males, except the garganey, have the under tail -coverts black, but 
in that species they resemble those of the females, which are whitish 
spotted with brown or black. 
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