The WIDOW DUCK (_Dendrocygna viduata_) has the face and throat white, shaded with reddish brown on the brow and cheeks; the back of head, nape, and sides of the neck are bright reddish brown; the sides of the breast and the back reddish olive, darkly spotted and marked; the long lower shoulder-feathers are olive-brown edged with yellowish white; the lower back, centre of tail, and entire under side below the breast are black; the sides of the body are greyish white, striped with blackish brown; the upper wing-covers are bright reddish brown; secondary quills olive-brown, with green edges, and the quills and tail-feathers greenish black; the eye is reddish brown, beak black, with a dark grey stripe near its nail-like tip; the foot is lead-grey. This species is eighteen inches long and thirty-two inches broad; the wing measures eight inches and three-quarters, the tail two inches and two-thirds. The female closely resembles her mate. All travellers who have visited South America describe this bird as occurring in amazing multitudes, more especially in the marshy grounds of the prairies; and travellers in Africa assert that it is equally abundant in the southern and western regions of that continent. Upon the Upper Blue Nile we have ourselves several times met with it in extraordinarily large flocks, which, in closely-packed ranks, covered the banks of the river to a great distance, and when they rose into the air had the appearance of a dense cloud. Heuglin states that the males and females of these birds remain constantly separate from each other; such a statement, however, we can positively contradict, seeing that we have killed individuals of both sexes at a single shot. We are by no means well informed as to the history of these birds, and about their mode of breeding we know little or nothing certainly. The Widow Duck is distinguishable among its congeners by a gait which sometimes resembles that of a Goose, as also by the heaviness of its flight, but more particularly by its predilection for sandbanks and sandy places upon the riverside, to which, when driven away, it invariably returns. The Prince von Wied tells us that at Sertong, in the province of Bahia, it is very abundant in swampy, overflooded meadows, also in marshes, as well as in lakes and other open sheets of water; it is, likewise, often to be seen upon the sea-coast. As regards the latter statement, however, Schomburghk expressly says that he has never met with it on the sea-coast, but that in the swamps of Savannah it is particularly numerous, and with this our experience in Africa quite coincides. Of their behaviour Schomburghk gives a very pleasing sketch:--"The pretty little Bisisi Ducks," says that writer, "seem to be under a ban in this neighbourhood; no sooner did we see a flock of them than men jumped at once into the water almost up to their necks, and began to shoot with their well-directed arrows as rapidly as possible into the thickest part of the flock.