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ASPECIES 14. aNaS PERSPICILL T.9.
               BLACK, OR SURF DUCK.
                  [Plate LXVII.- Fig. 1.1
1e grande Macreuse de la Baye de Hudson, BRISS. VI, p. 4q25, 30.
  -La JMacreuse a large bec, BUFF. ix, p. 244.-Pl. Ent. 995.--
  EWD. P1. 155.--LATI-. Syn. iir, p. 479,--Phil. Trans. LXII, p
  417.--PEALE'S Museums, No. 2788.*
  THIs Duck is peculiar to America, and altogether confined
to the shores and bays of the sea, particularly where the waves
roll over the sandy beach. Their food consists principally of
those small bivalve shell fish already described, spout fish, and
others that lie in the sand near its surface. For these they dive
almost constantly, both in the sandy bays and aimidst the tumbl-
ing surf. They seldom or never visit the salt marshes. They
continue on our shores during the winter; and leave us early in
May for their breeding places in the nr h. Their skins are
remarkably strong, and their flesh coarse, tasting of fish. They
are shy birds, not easily approached, and are common in win-
ter along the whole coast from the river St. Lawrence to Flo-
rida.
  The length of this species is twenty inches, extent thirty-two
inches; the bill is yellowish red, elevated at the base, and mark-
ed on the side of the upper mandible with a large square patch
of black, preceded by another space of a pearl colour; the part
of the bill thus marked swells or projects considerably from the
common surface; the nostrils are large and pervious; the sides
of the bill broadly serrated or toothed; both mandibles are fur-
nished with a nail at the extremity; irides white, or very pale
*.dnasperspicillata, GMEL. SySt. I, p. 524, No. 25.-lad, Orn. p' 847, No,
4
-PEALE'S Museum, No. 2789, female.