APPENDIX.-F. 
365 
script, none have referred me for it to any known or described 
species. 
The birds to which it has most affinity and resemblance are, 
as I have already said, the Surf Duck, Velvet Duck, and Scoter ; 
but every one of these has a parti-colored bill, broadly marked 
with red, orange, yellow, or cream-color ; and this seems to be¬ 
long to all the Ducks which have a similar conformation of bill. 
It is quite evident, from the great number of specimens of 
both sexes and of different ages, that this bird has the bill per¬ 
manently and immutably black. 
From Mr. Bell’s California Duck, the Huron bird differs in 
three respects : it appears to be considerably larger, and has no 
white about it, with the exception of the primaries and the two 
eye spots, while his bird has a roundish white patch, as big as a 
twenty-five cent piece, on the nape, which in mine is invariably 
soot-black in the adult male, and dingy black in the young and 
the females; the Californian Duck has also more fuscous, or 
brown, on the upper parts than any I have seen in the North¬ 
west. 
Before closing this appendix, I must mention, that within the 
last six weeks I received a letter from a gentleman with whom I 
had not previously the honor of an acquaintance, an officer of the 
same regiment I have already named, quartered at Prescott, on 
the St. Lawrence. While shooting over decoys he had killed a 
Duck which he could not well make out, either from men or 
books, and, knowing my enthusiasm on the subject, was good 
enough to write to me, asking if I could give him the informa¬ 
tion he required. 1 saw at a glance that the Duck was this of 
which I am now writing. By the correspondence which has en¬ 
sued, it seems that he has killed but two at Prescott, where the 
bird is otharwise unknown, and never saw one before. 
His measurements, which he was kind enough to forward for 
my inspection, are now before me, and coincide in all respects, 
save that mine are by a fraction the larger. Proportionally 
they are almost identical; his length from bill to tail being 18$ 
to my 18$, and to the claws 20 to my 20 T V 
There is in all birds, of course, much allowance to be made 
