SPECIES 25. AN^S LABRADORA. 
PIED DUCK. 
[Plate LXIX.— Fig. 6.] 
Arct. Znol. J^o. 488. — Lath. Sj/n. in,p. 497. — Peale’s Jl/wsfMm, 
JSTo. 2858.* 
This is rather a scarce species on our coasts, and is never 
met with on fresh water lakes or rivers. It is called by some 
gunners the Sand Shoal Duck, from its habit of frequenting sand 
bars. Its principal food appears to be shell fish, which it pro- 
cures by diving. The flesh is dry, and partakes considerably 
of the nature of its food. It is only seen here during winter; 
most commonly early in the month of March a few are observ- 
ed in our market. Of their particular manners, place, or mode 
of breeding nothing more is known. Latham observes that a 
pair in the possession of Sir Joseph Banks were brought from 
Labrador. Having myself had frequent opportunities of exa- 
mining both sexes of these birds, I find that, like most others, 
they are subject when young to a progressive change of colour. 
The full plumaged male is as follows: length twenty inches, 
extent twenty -nine inches; the base of the bill, and edges of 
both mandibles for two-thirds of their length, are of a pale 
orange colour, the rest black, towards the extremity it widens 
a little in the manner of the Shovellers, the sides there having 
the singularity of being only a soft, loose, pendulous skin; iri- 
des dark hazel; head and half of the neck white, marked along 
the crown to the hind-head with a stripe of black; the plumage 
of the cheeks is of a peculiar bristly nature at the points, and 
* Jlnas Labradora, Gmel. Si/s<. i, p. 326, No. 97. — fnd. Oni. j). SGI, JVo. 74. — 
Le Canard Jansen, PI. Enl. 955. — Bupf. ix, p. 174. — Pealb’s Musexim, No. 
2199, female. 
VOL. in. — 3 B 
