354 
SCAUP DUCK. 
Such is the colour of the bird in its perfect state. Young 
birds vary considerably, some having the head black mixed 
with gray and purple, others the back dusky with little or no 
white, and that irregularly dispersed. 
The female has the front and sides of the same white, head 
and half of the neck blackish brown; breast, spreading round to 
the back, a dark sooty brown, broadly skirted with whitish'; 
back black, thinly sprinkled with grains of white, vent whitish; 
wings the same as in the male. 
The windpipe of the male of this species is of large diameter; 
the labyrinth similar to some others, though not of the largest 
kind; it has something of the shape of a single cockle shell; its 
open side or circular rim, covered with a thin transparent skin. 
Just before the windpipe enters this, it lessens its diameter at 
least two-thirds, and assumes a flattish form. 
The Scaup Duck is well known in England. It inhabits Ice- 
land and the more northern parts of the continent of Europe, 
Lapland, Sweden, Norway, and Russia. It is also common on 
the northern shores of Siberia. Is very frequent on tbe river 
Ob. Breeds in the north, and migrates southward in winter. 
It inhabits America as high as Hudson’s Bay, and retires from 
this last place in October. * 
Note. Pennant and Latbam state that the male weighs a pound 
and a half; and the female two ounces more. This is undoubtedly 
an error, the female being less than the male, and the latter being 
generally the fattest. Montagu says that the species weighs 
sometimes as much as thirty-five ounces, which statement comes 
nearer the truth than that of the foregoing. On the eighth of 
April, of the present year, (1824,) I shot, on the Delaware, 
an adult male which weighed two pounds and three quar- 
ters. I have frequently shot them of two pounds and a half; 
and on the Chesapeake, and on the coast, they are still heavier. 
In the Delaware there are several favourite feeding grounds 
of the Blue-bill along the Jersey shore, from Burlington to 
Latham. 
