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Wilson, Alexander, 1766-1813. / American ornithology; or The natural history of the birds of the United States
(1829)

Species 6. Anas strepera. The gadwall,   pp. [303]-304


Page [303]


SPECIES 6. HENSS STREPERI.e
                    THE GADWALL.
               [Plate LXXI.-Fig. 1, Male.]
Le Chipeau, BRISS. vi, p. S39. 8. pt. SS. fig. 1-BUFF. IX, 187.-
  Pt. Ent. 958.-Jrct. Zool. p. 575.-LATH. Syn. iii, p. 51 5.-
  PEAL ES Museum, .No. 2750.*
  THIS beautiful Duck 1 have met with in very distant parts of
the United States, viz. on the Seneca lake in New York, about
the twentieth of October, and at Louisville on the Ohio, in Feb-
ruar.y. I also shot it near Big Bone Lick in Kentucky. With
its particular manners or breeding place, I am altogether unac-
quainted.
  The length of this species is twenty inches, extent thirty-one
inches; bill two inches long, formed very much like that of the
Mallard, and of a brownish black; crown dusky brown, rest of
the upper half of the neck brownish white, both thickly spec-
kled with black; lower part of the neck and breast dusky black,
elegantly ornamented with large concentric semicircles of white;
scapulars waved with lines of white on a dusky ground, but
narrower than that of the breast; primaries ash; greater wing-
coverts black, and several of the lesser coverts immediately
above chestnut red; speculum white, bordered below with black,
forming three broad bands on the wing of chestnut, black, and
white; belly dull white; rump and tail coverts black, glossed
with green; tail tapering, pointed, of a pale brown ash edged
with white; flanks dull white elegantly waved; tertials long,
and of a pale brown, legs orange red.
  The female I have never seen. Latham describes it as follows:
  * Aas strepera, GmEL. SySt. I, p. 520, No. 20.-Ind. Orn. p. 849, tAo. 69.-
TExMM. Man. d'Orn. p. 837,-BEwICK, iI, p. 314.-PEALE'S 0.MSe~ni, .J'O.
2751, female.


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