70 
BLACK, OR SURF DUCK. 
BLACK, OR SURF DUCK, ANAS PERSPICILLATA — 
Plate LXVII. Fig. 2. Male. 
La grande Macreuse de la Baye de Hudson, Briss. vi. 425, 30. — La Macreuse j£ 
large hec. Buff. ix. p. 244; PI. Enl. 995 Edw. pi. 155. — Lath. Syn. iii. 
p. 479. — PhiL Trans, Ixii. p. 417 . — Pealds Museum, No. 2788 ; female, 
2789. 
OIBEMIA PERSPICILLA Tvl.— S tephens. 
Oidemia perspicillata, Steph. Cont. Sh. Gen, Zool. xii. p. 219. — Oidemia, sub-gen. 
Fuligula perspicillata, Bonap. Synop. p. 389- — Oidemia perspicillata, iVbr^/t. ZooL 
ii. p. 449. — Jard. and Selby, Illust. of Ornith. pi. 138. 
This duck is peculiar to America,* and altogether confined 
to tlie shores and bays of the sea, particularly where the waves 
roll over the sandy beach. Their food consists principally of 
those small bivalve shell-fish already described, spout-fish, and 
others that lie in the sand near its surface. For these they 
dive almost constantly, both in the sandy bays and amidst the 
tumbling surf. They seldom or never visit the salt marshes. 
They continue on our shores during the^^vinter, and leave us 
early in May, for their breeding places in the north. Their 
skins are remarkably strong, and their flesh coarse, tasting of 
fish. They are shy birds, not easily approached, and are com- 
mon in winter along the whole coast, from the River St Law- 
rence to Florida. 
The length of this species is twenty inches ; extent, thirty- 
two inches ; the bill is yellowish red, elevated at the base, and 
marked on the side of the upper mandible with a large square 
* One or two instances of this bird being killed on the shores of Great Bri- • 
tain have occuri*ed ; and, as an occasional visitant, it will be figured in the con- 
cluding Number of Mr Selby’s Illustrations of British Ornithology. It is also 
occasionally met with on the continent of Europe, but generally in high latitudes, 
and, though unfrequent elsewhere, it is not entirely confined to America. — Ed. 
