VELVET DUCK. (Oidemia fusca. Fleming.)
Another of the family of the Anatidæ, common to the waters of the Chesapeake, is the Velvet Duck. This species, like the Scoter Duck, with which it is often confounded, feeds entirely upon shell-fish, which it procures by diving. Though the flesh of the old birds has a rank, fishy flavor, they are much sought after in some parts of the country; and the young birds, whose flesh affords better eating, meet with a ready sale in our markets. The Velvet Duck is distinguished from the other dark species of the sub-genus Oidemia, by the name of the White-winged Coot. The Velvet Duck is nearly related to the Black, or Surf Duck, which breeds along the shores of Hudson’s Bay, and extends its migrations as far south as Florida. Its flesh is remarkably red and dark when cooked, is fishy, and has little to recommend it; the young birds are better flavored, but the whole are of little consequence as game. Commonly associated with the Velvet Duck is another kindred species, the Scoter. They are common in the bay and sounds near New York, and in the Chesapeake. Like the American Scoter and the Velvet Duck, their flesh has a rank and oily taste—the young birds only being considered palatable by epicures. All these fishy flavored birds, in the times when the use of flesh was prohibited with great strictness during Lent, were decided by the ecclesiastical authorities to be a sort of fish which might be eaten with impunity. They all have the bill broad and gibbous above the nostrils; its margins dilated; camelliform teeth, coarse; the nostrils large and elevated, and nearly in the middle of the bill; the tail numbers fourteen feathers. The prevailing color of the plumage is black in the males, in the females brown. They do not come much upon the fresh waters, but keep the shores of the sea, and find great part of their food by diving. Their breeding places are not much known, but it is supposed that they resort far to the northward. Most of them are common to the northern parts of both hemispheres.