82 
HISTORY OF 
bays, and amidst the tumbling surf. They are shy birds, and 
not easily approached ; and are common, in winter, along the 
whole coast, from the river St. Lawrence to Florida. 
The Surf Duck has the bill of an orange yellow, with a four- 
cornered rather diamond-shaped patch of black on the side, 
near the base of the upper mandible. The bill, as in the rest of 
its genus, is raised at the base, and short and thick in propor- 
tion to the size of the bird. Plumage, in general, dead black, 
but slightly glossed on the sides of the neck ; a patch of 
white on the occiput ; another elongated one down the back of 
the neck. 
The female is dusky brown ; lighter about the neck and 
belly ; the raised part of the bill not so prominent as in the 
male. Size about that of the Velvet Duck, or rather smaller. 
Length of the male, one foot four inches ; of the female, one 
foot three inches : length of the bill from gape to apex, two 
inches and six lines. The female of the Black Scoter is not 
very unlike the bird of the same sex in this species ; but they 
may easily be distinguished : in the first place, by the length of 
the bill, that of Oidemia Perspicillata being the longest ; and 
also by the grey marking on the cheeks and behind the eye, the 
same colour being in O. Nigra confined to the throat. 
Another species, nearly allied to the two just mentioned, has 
been introduced by Dr. Fleming, in his “ British Animals,” 
into the British Fauna, viz. Oidemia Leucocephala, Stephens, or 
White-headed Duck ; but as it appears to be only on the suppo- 
sition, that the female of O. Nigra may have been mistaken for 
it, we have not admitted it into our work. Should the species 
occur to any of our readers, they will at once be able to distin- 
guish it by the situation of the hind toe, which is placed much 
higher on the tarsi in the White-headed Duck than on the 
