CANVASS-BACK DUCK. 
219 
strongly tinged with a yellowish cream colour ; in old 
males, these parts are pure white, with the exception 
sometimes of the bristly pointed plumage of the cheeks, 
which retains its cream tint the longest, and, with the 
skinny part of the hill, form two strong peculiarities of 
this species. 
The female measures nineteen inches in length, and 
twenty-seven in extent ; bill, exactly as in the male ;> 
sides of the front, white ; head, chin, and neck, ashy 
gray ; upper parts of the back and wings, brownish 
slate ; secondaries only, white ; tertials, hoary ; the 
white secondaries form a spot on the wing, bounded by 
the black primaries, and four hoary tertials edged with 
black ; whole lower parts, a dull ash, skirted with 
brownish white, or clay colour ; legs and feet, as in the 
male ; the bill in both is marked from the nostrils 
backwards by a singular heart shaped outline. 
The windpipe of the male measures ten inches in' 
length, and has four enlargements, viz. one immediately 
below the mouth, and another at the interval of an 
inch ; it then bends largely down to the breast bone, to 
which it adheres by two strong muscles, and has at that 
place a third expansion. It then becomes flattened, and 
before it separates into the lungs, has a fourth enlarge-* 
ment much greater than any of the former, which is 
bony, and round, puffing out from the left side. The 
intestines measured six feet ; the stomach contained 
small clams, and some glutinous matter ; the liver was 
remarkably large. 
275 . ANAS VALISINERIA) WILSON. — CANVASS-BACK DUCK. 
WILSON, PLATE LXX. FIG. V. 
This celebrated American species, as far as can be 
judged from the best figures and descriptions of foreign 
birds, is altogether unknown in Europe. It approaches; 
nearest to the pochard of England, ( anas ferina,) but 
differs from that bird in being superior in size and 
weight, in the greater magnitude of its bill, and the; 
