It seldom removes from the north on its way to our Middle Districts in large flocks; but at the approach of the breeding season, and after the birds appear to be all paired, they fly northward in long lines, or broad fronts, moving high or low according to the state of the weather, passing at times at a considerable distance from the shores, but flying close to the points of every cape, although they never pass over an isthmus however narrow. Their flight is swift, well sustained, and accompanied with a well-marked whistling of their wings. Being expert divers, it is difficult to kill them on the water; and if you happen to wound one but slightly, I would advise you, Reader, to give up the chase, unless you have hit it while on the ice, in which case you will find that it runs rather awkwardly. Their flesh is none of the best, being dark, generally tough, and to the taste fishy; for which reason they are now-a-days frequently brought to our markets plucked, with the head and feet cut off, and called by the venders by all names excepting old wives, squaws, noisy ducks, or south-southerlies. The food of this species consists chiefly of shell-fish; but in the stomachs of those killed on fresh water in Labrador, I found small fishes, and a quantity of grass and its roots. From the great number of specimens which I have procured in our Middle Districts in winter, and those which I have seen killed during the love season in the north, I am induced to think that the elongated feathers of the tail of this species scarcely if at all, differ in length at these different periods, although some writers have said that in spring they are much longer than in winter, in which latter season, however, I think the old males differ only in the colour of their plumage from their state in spring. I have obtained male specimens at New York and at Baltimore early in March, when they were already much changed from their appearance in winter; but my friend BACHMAN informs me that he has never seen one with any appearance of the summer plumage at Charleston in South Carolina, where however, he adds, this species is not common. I have represented two male birds, one in its full spring dress, the other in that of winter. You will also find in the same plate the first figure ever given of an adult female, accompanied with as many younglings as I could conveniently introduce. WILSON gave the figure of a young male in the first winter as that of a female. ANAS GLACIALIS, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 203.—_Lath._ Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 864. FULIGULA GLACIALIS, _Ch. Bonaparte_, Synopsis, p. 395. LONG-TAILED DUCK, ANAS GLACIALIS, _Wils._ Amer. Ornith. vol. viii. p. 93. pl. 70. fig. 1. male, pl. 70. fig. 2. female. LONG-TAILED DUCK, HARELDA GLACIALIS, _Richardson and Swainson_, Fauna Bor. Amer. vol. ii. p. 460. LONG-TAILED DUCK, _Nuttall_, Manual, vol. ii. p. 453. Adult male in summer. Plate CCCXII. Fig. 1.