160 
FEMALE RUDDY DUCK. 
The latter informs us that the species appears in Jamaica in 
October or November ; remains till March ; and then retires 
to the north. This account coincides with ours : we see the 
bird on its way to the south in October ; it reaches Jamaica 
in November ; it departs thence in March, and revisits us, in 
regular progression, in April. Where its summer residence is 
we are not informed ; and we are equally ignorant whether 
the species is numerous in any part of our continent or not. 
Judging from the descriptions of the Ural duck of Eu- 
ropean writers, there should seem to be a great affinity be- 
tween that and the present. Through the polite attention of 
Mr Charles Bonaparte, the Editor was enabled to examine a 
female specimen of the former ; and as he perceived some dif- 
ferences, he will here note them. The bill of the Ural duck, 
from the angle of the mouth, is two inches long ; that of our 
duck is one inch and three quarters, it is also less gibbous at 
the base than in the former, and it is less depressed above : 
the tail feathers of the Ural duck are guttered their whole 
length ; those of the ruddy duck are slightly canaliculated at 
their tips ; the lateral membrane of the inner toe of the latter 
is not half the breadth of that of the former. In other respects 
the females of the two species much resemble each other. In 
order to draw a just parallel, it would be necessary to examine 
a male specimen of the European bird, which our cabinets do 
not possess. 
“ The adult male, figured in the plate, is thus described by 
our author : ^ Length, fifteen inches and a half ; extent, twen- 
ty-two inches ; bill, broad at the tip, the under mandible much 
narrower than the upper, and both of a rich light blue nos- 
trils small, placed in the middle of the bill ; cheeks and chin 
white ; front, crown, and back part of the neck down nearly 
to the back, black ; rest of the neck, whole back, scapulars, 
flanks, and tail-coverts, deep reddish brown, the colour of 
* So coloured in Peale’s specimen ; but there is reason to conjecture that the 
colour of the upper mandible alone was a blue ash. 
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