Although the Dusky Duck is often seen on salt-water bays or inlets, it resembles the Mallard in its habits, being fond of swampy marshes, rice-fields, and the shady margins of our rivers, during the whole of its stay in such portions of the Southern States as it is known to breed in. They are equally voracious, and may sometimes be seen with their crops so protruded as to destroy the natural elegance of their form. They devour, with the greatest eagerness, water-lizards, young frogs and toads, tadpoles, all sorts of insects, acorns, beech nuts, and every kind of grain that they can obtain. They also, at times, seize on small quadrupeds, gobble up earth-worms and leeches, and when in salt water, feed on shell-fish. When on the water, they often procure their food by immersing their head and neck, and, like the Mallard, sift the produce of muddy pools. Like that species also, they will descend in a spiral manner from on high, to alight under an oak or a beech, when they have discovered the mast to be abundant. Shy and vigilant, they are with difficulty approached by the gunner, unless under cover or on horseback, or in what sportsmen call floats, or shallow boats made for the purpose of procuring water-fowl. They are, however, easily caught in traps set on the margins of the waters to which they resort, and baited with Indian corn, rice, or other grain. They may also be enticed to wheel round, and even alight, by imitating their notes, which, in both sexes, seem to me almost precisely to resemble those of the Mallard. From that species, indeed, they scarcely differ in external form, excepting in wanting the curiously recurved feathers of the tail, which Nature, as if clearly to distinguish the two species, had purposely omitted in them. The flight of this Duck, which, in as far as I know, is peculiar to America, is powerful, rapid, and as sustained as that of the Mallard. While travelling by day they may be distinguished from that species by the whiteness of their lower wing-coverts, which form a strong contrast to the deep tints of the rest of their plumage, and which I have attempted to represent in the figure of the female bird in my plate. Their progress through the air, when at full speed, must, I think, be at the rate of more than a mile in a minute, or about seventy miles in an hour. When about to alight, they descend with double rapidity, causing a strong rustling sound by the weight of their compact body and the rapid movements of their pointed wings. When alarmed by a shot or otherwise, they rise off their feet by a single powerful spring, fly directly upwards for eight or ten yards, and then proceed in a straight line. Now, if you are an expert hand, is the moment to touch your trigger, and if you delay, be sure your shot will fall short.