APPENDIX.-F. 
363 
The above measurements were not taken from the Duck first 
seen by me, but from a large male which was shot, with many 
others of the same species, on the Severn River, and in the up¬ 
per end of Lake Simcoe, where we fell in with them while on a 
shooting expedition in birch canoes, much later in the Autumn, 
coming in, as it would seem at that time, from the North ; for 
we had been shooting some days previously on the same waters, 
and on the adjoining rivers, Wye and Cold-water, for two or 
three weeks,'without seeing any of these Duck. The weather 
was quite cold, and ice making in the mornings, when we first met 
them plentifully, though subsequently we had a long and lovely 
Indian summer. 
The first shot we got at them was at a flight of about twenty 
or thirty birds, which flew quite fearlessly toward us, and wheeled 
down, as if about to alight directly between our canoes, which 
were paddling on parallel lines, scarce twenty yards apart, and 
received a volley of six or seven barrels, which brought down 
above one third of the flock dead, and as many more heavily 
wounded, which were afterwards bagged. The others'alighted 
within a couple of hundred yards of the canoes, in the clear open 
lake, when the Chippewa Indian, who steered my brother’s canoe, 
immediately asserted that we could now paddle right upon them ; 
which, after a smart fusilade upon the wounded, we did without 
any difficulty, the birds sitting stupidly on the water, and allow¬ 
ing us to come within twenty yards of them, without offering to 
take wing. On our way home, we shot many more, and took 
home with us to Penetanguishine, to the best of my recollection, 
some fifteen or twenty couple. Several of these I had an oppor¬ 
tunity of examining by dissection, through the kind assistance of 
the Medical Staff Officer on that station, himself an able natura¬ 
list, who had never previously seen the bird, so that we satisfac¬ 
torily ascertained the distinctions of coloring, as between the full 
grown males, and the younger males and females. 
I may here add, that after* confidently predicting, from their 
close resemblance to the uneatable Scoter, Velvet Duck, Surf 
Duck, and I may say Eider and King Duck, to all of which they 
are assimilated in many particulars, that they would prove worth- 
