CANVASS-BACK DUCK. 
113 
They were all Cajivass-backs^ at that time on their way from the 
north, when this floating feast attracted their attention, and for a 
while arrested them in their course. A pair of these very Ducks 
I myself bought in Philadelphia market at the time, from an Egg- 
Harbor gunner, and never met with their superior either in weight 
or excellence of flesh. When it was known among those people 
the loss they had sustained in selling for twenty-five cents what 
would have brought them from a dollar to a dollar and a half per 
pail*, universal surprise and regret were naturally enough excited. 
The Canvass-back is two feet long, and three feet in extent, 
and when in good order weighs three pounds and a half ; the bill 
is large, rising high in the head, three inches in length, and one 
inch and three eighths thick at the base, of a glossy black ; eye 
very small, irides dark red ; cheeks and forepart of the head black- 
ish brown ; rest of the head and greater part of the neck bright 
glossy reddish chestnut, ending in a broad space of black that co- 
vers the upper part of the breast, and spreads round to the back ; 
back, scapulars, and tertials, white, faintly marked with an infinite 
number of transverse waving lines or points, as if done with a pen- 
cil ; whole lower parts of the breast, also the belly, white, slightly 
penciled in the same manner, scarcely perceptible on the bi east, 
pretty thick towards the vent ; wing-coverts gray, with numerous 
specks of blackish; primaries and secondaries pale slate, two or 
three of the latter of which, nearest the body, are finely edged with 
deep velvetty 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 accounts for its great powers of swimming. 
The female is somewhat less than the male, and weighs three 
pounds ; 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 
2 F 
VOL. VIII. 
