CANVASS-BACK DUCK. 
133 
secondaries, pale slate, two or three of the latter of which 
nearest the body are finely edged with deep velvety black, the 
former dusky at the tips; tail, very short, pointed, consisting of 
fourteen feathers of a hoary brown; vent and tail-coverts, black; 
lining of the wing, white ; legs and feet, very pale ash, the 
latter three inches in width, a circumstance which partly ac- 
counts for its great powers of swimming. 
The female is somewhat less than the male, and weighs two 
pounds and three quarters ; the crown is blackish brown ; cheeks 
and throat, of a pale drab ; neck, dull brown; breast, as far as the 
black extends on the male, dull brown, skirted in places with 
pale drab ; back, dusky white, crossed with fine waving lines ; 
belly, of the same dull white, pencilled like the back ; wings, 
feet, and bill, as in the male ; tail-coverts, dusky ; vent, white, 
waved with brown. 
The windpipe of the male has a large flattish concave 
labyrinth, the ridge of which is covered with a thin transparent 
membrane ; where the trachea enters this, it is very narrow, 
but immediately above swells to three times that diameter. 
The intestines are wide, and measure five feet in length. 
Mr Ord, in his reprint, has added the following interesting 
observations : — It is a circumstance calculated to excite our 
surprise, that the canvass-back, one of the commonest species 
of our country, a duck which frequents the waters of the Chesa- 
peake in flocks of countless thousands, should yet have been 
either overlooked by the naturalists of Europe, or confounded 
with the pochard, a species whose characters are so obviously 
different. But that this is the fact the editor feels well as- 
sured, since he has carefully examined every author of repute, 
to which he has had access, and has not been enabled to find 
any description which will correspond to the subject before us. 
The species, then, we hope, will stand as Wilson’s own ; and 
it is no shiall addition to the fame of the American Ornitho^ 
logy, that it contains the first scientific account of the finest 
duck that any country can boast of. 
“ The canvass-back frequents the Delaware in considerable 
