142 
RUDDY DUCK. 
small seeds. Her eggs were numerous and tolerably large ; hence, 
as she was shot in the month of October, it was conjectured that 
she was a bird of the preceding year. 
The young male, shot in April last, measured fifteen inches 
in length ; its irides were dark brown ; bill elevated at the base, 
slightly gibbous, and blue ash, from the nostrils to the tip mixed 
with dusky, lower mandible yellowish flesh color, marbled with 
dusky ; crown brown black ; throat and cheeks, as far as the up- 
per angle of the bill, white, stained with bright yellow ochre ; 
auriculars almost pure white ; the black from the crown surround- 
ed the eyes, and passed round the white of the auriculars ; hind- 
head black, mixed with ferruginous ; breast and shoulders bright 
ferruginous ; belly ash and silver white , back and scapulars liver 
brown, finely penciled with gray and reddish white ; rump and up- 
per tail-coverts the same ground color, but the markings not so 
distinct; wings light liver brown, the lesser coverts finely powder- 
ed with gray ; on the back and scapulars, the flanks, and around 
the base of the neck, the brownish red or bright mahogany color- 
ed plumage, which distinguishes the adult male, was coming out ; 
inner webs of the tail partly dusky, outer webs, for two thirds of 
their length, and the tip, dirty ferruginous ; legs blue ash in front, 
behind, the toes and webs, dusky. When the tail is not spread, it 
is somewhat conical, and its narrow, pointed feathers, are slightly 
guttered at their tips ; when spread, it is wedge-shaped. The tra- 
chea is of nearly equal diameter throughout ; and has no labyrinth 
or enlargement at its lower part. 
Another young male, shot in October, measured fifteen and a 
quarter inches in length, and twenty-three inches in breadth ; bill 
greenish black, lower mandible yellowish flesh color, mixed with 
dusky ; from the bill to the hind-head a deep liver brown, the tips 
of the plumage bronzed ; whole upper parts dark umber brown, 
penciled with pale ferruginous, bulF and white ; from the corner of 
