Identifier: birdsEuropeVGoul (find matches)
Title: The birds of Europe
Year: 1837 (1830s)
Authors: Gould, John, 1804-1881
Subjects: Pictorial works Birds
Publisher: London, Printed by R. and J.E. Taylor, pub. by the author
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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d with down, in which it deposits from eight to ten white eggs. As in the other members of the genus the sexes differ very considerably from each other, but as the femalevery closely resembles the female of the Surf Scoter we have not deemed it necessary to give a figure of it. The male has the whole of the plumage of a deep velvety black, with the exception of a patch of whitebeneath the eye, and the secondaries, which are pure white and form a band across the wing; upper mandibleblack at the base, the remainder red, edged with black; under mandible pale yellowish white, edged withblack ; legs red on the outside, and deep yellow sprinkled with black on the inner; irides white. The female has the whole of the plumage of a dull blackish brown, which is much lighter and rayed withgreyish on the under surface; between the bill and the eye, and on the ear-coverts, a spot of white ; beakblackish ash colour; tarsi and feet dull red ; irides brown. We have figured a male of the natural size.
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Sri BLACK SCOTER. Anas nigra, Linn.Oidemia nigra, Flem.Le Canard macreuse. No one of this truly oceanic group of Ducks is more familiar to our readers than the Black Scoter, visiting- asit does, during its spring and autumnal migrations, the seas which immediately encircle our island ; in fact,we can seldom at these seasons cross the channel between England and the Continent without observing it;numerous flocks of them winging their way from one shoal or fishing-place to another, or diving in pursuitof their prey. They subsist almost entirely on bivalves, such as the common mussel, Sec, and they especiallyabound where large beds of these shell-fish afford them an unfailing supply of favourite diet, their close ad-pressed plumage and great power of diving admirably fitting them for their destined mode of life. Althoughso plentiful on our shores, and on those of the Continent, especially Holland, it does not appear that it everbreeds in our latitudes, but retires for that purpose to the

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