114 
PIED DUCK. 
PIED DUCK ANAS LABRADORA — Plate LXIX. Fig. 6. 
Arct. Zool. No. 488. — Lath. Syti. iii. p. 497. — Peale's Museum, No. 2858. 
FULIGULA LABRADORA.— Boi^AFARTE.* 
Fuligula Labradora, Sonap. Synop. p. 391. 
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 ob-, 
served in our market. Of their principal 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 
examining 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 ex- 
tremity it widens a little in the manner of the shovellers, the 
sides there having the singularity of being only a soft, loose, 
pendulous skin ; irides, 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 round the neck passes a collar of 
black which spreads over the back, rump, and tail-coverts ; 
* The Prince of Musignano places this bird among the Fuligula. I have had 
no opportunity of seeing the bird itself, and cannot therefore speak from exami- 
nation as to its station. It seems a true sea-duck, and agrees in general habits 
with the scaups and pochards. — Ed. 
