as well as the feet. They are by no means shy, for I have often waded toward them with my gun until very near them, when I cared not about shooting them, but was on the look-out for a new Rail or Gallinule, along the margin of the ponds. They are often seen in company with Teals, Scaup Ducks, Gadwalls, Shovellers, and Mallards, with all of which they seem to agree. My opinion that the males of this species lose the brightness of their spring dress before they return to us in autumn, is founded on the occurrence of multitudes of males at that season destitute of the garb in question, and my examination of many for the purpose of determining their sex and ascertaining that they were old birds. In February 1832, I saw immense flocks of Ruddy Ducks about an hundred miles up the St John’s in Florida. They would start from the water, as our schooner advanced under sail, patting it with their feet, so as to make a curious and rather loud noise, somewhat resembling the fall of hail-stones on the shingles. Their notes are uttered in a rather low tone and very closely resemble those of the female Mallard. They afford good eating when fat and young, and especially when they have been feeding for some weeks on fresh waters, where their food generally consists of the roots and blades of such grasses as spring from the bottom of rivers and ponds, as well as of the seeds of many gramineæ. When on salt marshes, they eat small univalve shells, fiddlers, and young crabs, and on the sea-coast, they devour fry of various sorts. Along with their food, they swallow great quantities of sand or gravel. At St Augustine, in Florida, I shot a young bird of this species immediately under the walls of the fort. Although wounded severely and with one of its legs broken close to the body, it dived at once. My Newfoundland dog leaped into the water, and on reaching the spot where the bird had disappeared, dived also, and in a few moments came up with the poor thing in his mouth. When the dog approached I observed that the duck had seized his nose with its bill; and when I laid hold of it, it tried to bite me also. I have found this species hard to kill, and when wounded very tenacious of life, swimming and diving at times to the last gasp. In the Fauna Boreali-Americana, the tail of the Ruddy Duck is said to be composed of sixteen feathers, and in NUTTALL’s Manual of twenty; but the number is eighteen. RUDDY DUCK, ANAS RUBIDA, _Wils._ Amer. Ornith. vol. viii. p. 137, pl. 71, fig. 5. male; pl. 130, fig. 6. young male. FULIGULA RUBIDA, _Ch. Bonaparte_, Synopsis of Birds of United States, p. 390. FULIGULA RUBIDA, RUDDY DUCK, _Richards. and Swains._ Fauna Bor.-Amer. vol. ii. p. 455. RUDDY DUCK, _Nuttall_, Manual, vol. ii. p. 426. Adult Male in summer. Plate CCCXLIII. Fig. 1.