“Bill short, the color light grayish blue; speculum green, banded with black. Under wing coverts white. Adult male with the coral space, sides of the head, under the eye, upper part of the neck and throat brownish white, spotted with black. A broad band of white, commencing at the base of the upper mandible, passing over the crown.” It is this mark which has procured the bird its general provincial appellation of “Baldpate.” “Behind the eye a broad band of bright green, extending backward on the hind neck about three inches; the feathers on the nape rather long; lower neck and sides of the breast, with a portion of the upper part of the breast reddish brown. Rest of the lower parts white, excepting a patch of black at the base of the tail. Under tail coverts the same color. Flanks brown, barred with dusky; lower part of the hind neck and fore part of the back undulated with brownish and light brownish red, hind part undulated with grayish white; primaries brown; outer webs of the inner secondaries black, margined with white—inner webs grayish brown; secondary coverts white, tipped with black; speculum brilliant green formed by the middle secondaries. Length twenty-one inches, wing ten and a half. Female smaller, plumage duller, without the green markings.” The Widgeon breeds in the extreme north, beyond the reach of the foot of civilised man, in the boundless mosses and morasses, prodigal of food and shelter, of Labrador, and Boothia Felix, and the fur countries, where it spends the brief but ardent summer in the cares of nidification, and the reproduction of its species. During the spring and autumn, it is widely distributed throughout the Union, from the fresh lakes of the northwest to the shores of the ocean, but it is most abundant, as well as most delicious where the wild rice, _Zizania pannicula effusa_, the wild celery, _balisneria Americana_, and the eel-grass, _Zostera marina_, grow most luxuriously. On these it fares luxuriously, and becomes exceedingly fat, and most delicate and succulent eating, being almost entirely a vegetable feeder, and as such devoid of any fishy or sedgy flavor. In the spring and autumn it is not unfrequently shot in considerable numbers, from skiffs, on the mud banks of the Delaware, in company with Blue-winged Teal; and in winter it congregates in vast flocks, together with Scaups, better known as Bluebills, or Broadbills, Redheads, and Canvasbacks, to which last it is a source of constant annoyance, since being a far less expert diver than the Canvasback, it watches that bird until it rises with the highly-prized root, and flies off with the stolen booty in triumph.