140 
RUDDY DUCK. 
to him that the specimen from which Latham took his description 
was a young male of the Duck now before us. 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 Oc- 
tober; 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 con- 
tinent or not. 
Judging from the descriptions of the Ural Duck of European 
wj-iters, there should seem to be a great affinity between that and 
the present. Through the polite attention of Mr. Charles Bona- 
parte, the Editor was enabled to examine a female specimen of the 
former ; and as he perceived some differences, 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 quar- 
ters, 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 gut- 
tered 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 twenty-two 
inches ; bill broad at the tip, the under mandible much narrower 
than the upper, and both of a rich light blue;* nostrils small, 
placed in the middle of the bill ; cheeks and chin white ; front, 
^ So colored in Peale’s specimen ; but there is reason to conjecture that the color of the 
upper mandible alone was a blue ash. 
