THE SUMMER OR WOOD DUCK. (Anas Sponsa. Wilson.)
Linnæus has justly conferred upon this most beautiful of all the species of Duck the name of Sponsa, or the Bride. The name of Summer Duck it has derived from the circumstance of its remaining with us all the summer; and its habit of breeding in hollow trees, has gained for it the appellation of Wood Duck. It rarely visits the sea-shore, or salt marshes; its favorite haunts being the solitary, deep, and muddy creeks, ponds, and mill-dams of the interior, making its nest in old trees that overhang the water, and carrying its young to the ground in its bill. The food of this duck consists principally of acorns, seeds of the wild oats, and insects. Their flesh is inferior to that of the Blue-Winged Teal; and they are not uncommon in the market of Philadelphia. Latham says that they are often kept in European Menageries, and will breed there. Wilson, from whose account we have extracted the above statements, furnishes a description of the plumage of this duck, which we subjoin, as it is so exceedingly accurate as not to admit of any improvement. The Wood Duck is nineteen inches in length, and two feet four in extent; bill red, margined with black; a spot of black lies between the nostrils, reaching nearly to the tip, which is also of the same color, and furnished with a large hooked nail; irides, orange red; front crown, and pendent crest, rich glossy bronze green, ending in violet, elegantly marked with a line of pure white running from upper mandible over the eye, and with another band of white proceeding from behind the eye, both mingling their long, pendent plumes with the green and violet ones, producing a rich effect; cheeks and sides of the upper neck, violet; chin, throat, and collar round the neck, pure white, curving up in the form of a crescent nearly to the posterior part of the eye; the white collar is bounded below with black; breast, dark violet brown, marked on the fore part with minute triangular spots of white, increasing in size until they spread into the white of the belly; each side of the breast is bounded by a large crescent, and again by a broader one of deep black; sides under the wings thickly and beautifully marked with fine undulating parallel lines of black, on a ground of yellowish-drab; the flanks are ornamented with broad alternate semicircular bands of black and white; sides of the vent rich, light violet; tail-coverts, long, of a hair-like texture at the sides, over which they descend, and of a deep black, glossed with green; back, dusky-bronze, reflecting green; scapulars, black; tail tapering, dark, glossy-green above, below, dusky; primaries, dusky, silvery-hoary without, tipped with violet blue; secondaries, greenish-blue, tipped with white; wing-coverts, violet blue, tipped with black; vent, dusky; legs and feet, yellowish-red; claws, strong and hooked.
