334 
RUDDY DUCK. 
seen several other male specimens of this species, not one of 
which was an adult. In effect, the only old males which he has 
ever seen are that in Peale’s Museum, and another in the Cabi- 
net of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 
The Duck figured in the plate as the female was a young 
male, as the records of the Museum show; the great difference 
between its colours and markings, and those of the full-plumaged 
male, having induced the author to conclude it was a female, 
although he was perfectly familiar with the fact, that the young 
males of several species of this genus so nearly resemble the 
other sex, it requires a very accurate eye, aided by much ex- 
perience, to distinguish them by their external characters. This 
is precisely the case with the present species; the yearlings, of 
both sexes, are alike; and it is not until the succeeding spring 
that those characters appear in the males which enable one to 
indicate them, independent on dissection. 
The opinion of our author that this species is not the Jamaica 
Shoveller of Latham the editor cannot subscribe to, it appearing 
to him that the specimen from which Latham took his descrip- 
tion was a young male of the Duck now before us. The latter 
informs us that the species appears in Jamaica in October or 
November; remains till March; and then retires to the north. 
This account coincides with ours: we see the bird on its way to 
the south in October; it reaches Jamaica in November; it departs 
thence in March, and revisits us, in regular progression, in 
April. Where its summer residence is we are not informed; 
and we are equally ignorant whether the species is numerous in 
any part of our continent or not. 
Judging from the descriptions of the Ural Duck of European 
writers, there should seem to be a great affinity between that 
and the present. Through the polite attention of Mr. Charles 
Bonaparte, the editor was enabled to examine a female speci- 
men of the former; and as he perceived some differences, he will 
here note them. The bill of the Ural Duck, from the angle of 
the mouth, is two inches long: that of our Duck is one inch and 
