148 
THE GADWALL. 
about the 20th of October, and at Louisville, on the Ohio, in 
February. I also shot it near Big Bone Lick, in Kentucky. 
With its particular manners or breeding place, I am altogether 
unacquainted. 
The length of this species is twenty inches ; extent, thirty- 
one inches ; bill, two inches long, formed very much like that 
o!f the mallard, and of a brownish black ; crown, dusky brown ; 
rest of the upper half of the neck, brownish white, both thickly 
speckled with black ; lower part of the neck and breast, dusky 
black, elegantly ornamented with large concentric semicircles 
of white ; scapulars, waved with lines of white on a dusky 
ground, but narrower than that of the breast ; primaries, ash ; 
greater wing- coverts, black, and several of the lesser coverts, 
immediately above, chestnut red ; speculum, white, bordered 
below with black, forming three broad bands on the wing, of 
chestnut, black, and white ; belly, dull white ; rump and tail- 
coverts, black, glossed with green ; tail, tapering, pointed, of 
a pale brown ash, edged with white ; flanks, dull white, ele- 
gantly waved ; tertials, long, and of a pale brown ; legs, orange 
red. 
The female I have never seen. Latham describes it as fol- 
lows : “ Differs in having the colours on the wings duller, 
though marked the same as the male ; the breast, reddish 
brown, spotted with black ; the feathers on the neck and back, 
edged with pale red ; rump, the same, instead of black ; and 
those elegant semicircular lines on the neck and breast wholly 
wanting.” 
The flesh of this duck is excellent, and the windpipe of the 
male is furnished with a large labyrinth. 
The gadwall is very rare in the northern parts of the United 
States ; is said to inhabit England in winter, and various parts 
Europe, and towards the north. They seem very abundant in Holland ; in 
the months of September and October they were the most common duck in the 
market, and were often seen in abundance on the lakes. It will show Mr 
Swainson’s genus Chauliodus. — Ed. 
