HARLEQUIN DUCK. (Clangula Histrionica.)

The sub-genus, Clangula, embraces several species of ducks, small in size, but very active. They are found most abundantly in the northern parts of our continent, only appearing in the Middle States of the Union when they are driven from their habitations by the ice. The general characters of the sub-genus present a short and narrow bill; the feathers on the scapulars produced, pointed and apart from each other; the third quills passing over the primaries in the closed wing.

The first species which presents itself to our notice is the common Golden Eye, known to many of our gunners by the name of the Brass-Eyed Whistlers. The latter name it derives from the noisy whistling of its short wings, as it rises when flushed. It does not appear to possess any audible voice, and never utters a cry, or a quack, when disturbed. Easy of approach, they are nevertheless exceedingly difficult to kill, as they dive with such dexterity at the flash of a gun, or the twang of a bow, as to set at defiance the Aborigines, who have ascribed to them supernatural powers, and named them the Conjuring, or Spirit Duck. The Golden Eye has been the subject of much diversity of opinion among naturalists, and we therefore the more readily give place to Wilson’s accurate description of his plumage. The Golden Eye is nineteen inches long, and twenty-nine inches in extent, and weighs, on an average, about two pounds; the bill is black, short, rising considerably up in the forehead; the plumage of the head, and part of the neck, is somewhat humid, and of a dark green, with violet reflections, marked near the corner of the mouth with an oval spot of white; the irides are golden-yellow; rest of the neck, breast, and whole lower parts, white, except the flanks, which are dusky; back and wings, black; over the latter, a broad bed of white extends from the middle of the lesser coverts to the extremity of the secondaries; the exterior scapulars are also white; tail, hoary brown; tail-coverts, black; legs and toes, reddish-orange, webs very large, and of a dark purplish-brown; hind toe, and exterior edge of the inner one, broadly finned; sides of the bill, obliquely dentated; tongue covered above with a fine, thick, velvety down, of a whitish color. The full plumaged female is seventeen inches in length, and twenty seven inches in extent; bill, brown, orange near the tip; head, and part of the neck, brown, or very dark drab, bounded below by a ring of white, below that the neck is ash, tipped with white; rest of the lower part, white; wings dusky, six of the secondaries and their greater coverts, pure white, except the tips of the last, which are touched with dusky spots; rest of the wing coverts sinereous, mixed with whitish; back and scapulars, dusky, tipped with brown; feet, dull orange; across the vent a band of sinereous; tongue, covered with the same velvety down as the male. The young birds of the first season very much resemble the females, but may generally be distinguished by the white spot, or at least its rudiments, which marks the corner of the mouth, yet in some cases even this is variable, both old and young male birds occasionally wanting the spot.

Its flesh is well flavored, and it is equally common, in the winter season, in all the coasts of the United States. It is essentially a water bird, and walks with extreme difficulty. The birds known in the Carolinas by the name of Dippers, and in Pennsylvania and New Jersey by the appellation of Butter Box, belong to the Clangula, and are known by the specific name of Spirit Ducks, which they have acquired by successful evasions of the bullet and the arrow. They are even more difficult to bag than the Golden Eye, for when wounded with shot, they conceal themselves with great art beneath the water, remaining submerged to the bill until they fall into the jaws of a hungry pike, or are abandoned by the disappointed sportsman.

Of all the Clangulas, however, the most rare and most valued is the beautiful species whose representation we have given above. It is not unfrequently found off the coasts of New England, where the elegant crescents and circles of white which ornament its neck and breast have gained for it the proud title of The Lord, and, on the shores of Hudson’s Bay, the Painted Duck. It swims and dives well, has a whistling note, flies swift and to a great height, but always takes to the water on the report of a gun, as its most secure and natural element. Its flesh is extremely good, far superior, as game, to the Wild Duck.