THE LONG-TAILED DUCK. (Harelda Glacialis.)
The sub-genus Harelda is in many respects analogous to the Pochard or Scaup duck; it is a diving duck, and makes its appearance at the same season, and, like the latter, it is common to the colder regions of the whole northern hemisphere. Unlike many others of the family of ducks, it does not entirely quit its northern haunts in winter, but resides permanently in considerable numbers in the polar regions. Numerous flocks, however, spread themselves southward in the winter, from Greenland and Hudson’s Bay as far as the coast of Carolina, and from Iceland and Spitsbergen over Lapland, the Russian dominions, Sweden, Norway, and the northern parts of the British Isles in Europe. The bands which visit the Orkneys appear in October, and continue there till April. About sunset they are seen in large companies going to and returning from the bays in which they frequently pass the night, making a noise which, in frosty weather, may be heard at the distance of several miles. They are rather scarce in England, to which they resort only in very hard winters, and then in small straggling parties. They fly swiftly, but seldom to a very great distance, making a loud and singular cry. They are extremely expert divers, feeding almost exclusively on shell-fish. The female places her nest among the grass near the water, and, like the Eider duck, lines it with down from her own body. This lining is considered by Latham equally valuable with Eider down, but cannot be had in so great quantity. This duck is known along the shores of the Chesapeake and the coast of the Carolinas by the name of South-Southerly, from its singular cry somewhat resembling the sound of those words. On the coast of New Jersey it bears the appellation of Old Squaws or Old Wives. The northern Indians call it the Hah-hah-way, and it has elsewhere received the name of the Caccawee. We cannot devote the space necessary to a full description of the plumage of both sexes of this beautiful variety of ducks, though to the scientific sportsman it might be far from uninteresting. We will therefore merely glance at the plumage of the male, as given by Wilson, and pass on to notice another of the duck family, which like the one before us prefers the dangerous but productive ocean to the less turbulent inland waters. The mate of the long-tailed duck is distinguished from her partner by wanting the lengthened tertials, and the two long pointed feathers of the tail, and also by her size and the rest of her plumage. The length of the male is twenty-two inches; extent thirty inches; bill black, crossed near the extremity by a band of orange; tongue downy; iris dark red; cheeks and frontlet dull dusky-drab, passing over the eye and joining a large patch of black on the side of the neck, which ends in dark brown; throat and rest of the neck white; crown tufted, and of a pale cream-color; lower part of the neck, breast, back and wings black; scapulars and tertials pale blueish-white, long and pointed, and falling gracefully over the wings; the white of the lower part of the neck spreads over the back an inch or two; the white of the belly spreads over the sides, and nearly meets at the rump; secondaries chestnut, forming a bar across the wing; primaries, rump and tail coverts, black; the tail consists of fourteen feathers, all remarkably pointed, the two middle ones nearly four inches longer than the others; these with the two adjoining ones are black, the rest white; legs and feet dusky slate.
The windpipe is very curiously formed; besides the labyrinth, which is nearly as large as the end of the thumb, it has an expansion, immediately above that, of double its usual diameter, which continues for an inch and a half; this is flattened on the side next the breast, with an oblong, window-like vacancy in it, crossed with five narrow bars, and covered with a thin transparent skin, like the panes of a window; another thin skin of the same kind is spread over the external side of the labyrinth, which is partly of a circular form.
