WILD FOWL. 
91 
twenty-two inches in extent; the bill is broad at the tip, the 
under mandible much narrower, and both of a rich light-blue ; 
nostrils 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, scapu¬ 
lars, flanks, and tail coverts, deep reddish-brown, the color of 
bright mahogany ; wings, plain pale drab, darkest at the points; 
tail black, greatly tapering, containing eighteen narrow-pointed 
feathers; the plumage of the breast and upper part of the neck 
is of a remarkable kind, being dusky olive at bottom, ending in 
hard bristly points, of a silvery-gray, very much resembling the 
hair of some kinds of seal-skins ; all these are thickly marked 
with transverse curving lines of deep brown ; belly and vent 
silver-gray, thickly crossed with dusky olive j under tail coverts 
white; legs and feet ash-colored. 
“ Female Ruddy Duck .—This is nearly of the same size as 
the male ; the front, lores and crown deep blackish-browri ; bill 
as in the male, very broad at the extremity and largely toothed 
on the sides, of the same rich blue; cheeks a dull cream ; neck 
plain dull drab, sprinkled about the auriculars with blackish ; 
lower part of the neck and breast variegated with gray, ash, and 
reddish-brown; the reddish dies off towards the belly, leaving 
this last of a dull white, shaded with dusky ash; wings as in 
the male ; tail brown; scapulars dusky brown, thickly sprinkled 
with whitish, giving them a gray appearance ; legs ash. 
“ A particular character of this species is its tapering, sharp- 
pointed tail, the feathers of which are very narrow; the body is 
short; the bill very nearly as broad as some of those called 
Shovellers; the lower mandible much narrower than the 
upper.”— Wilson's American Ornithology. 
This bird I have never myself been so fortunate as to fall in 
with, as it is, more particularly in these regions, a sea Duck, 
which I am less given to pursuing than the various species of 
upland game ; and as it is shot more frequently to the eastward 
of Montauk Point and Boston Bay, than on the lagoons of 
