(Aythya americana)
The red-head is quite a common duck in the southern sections of the
Coast hunting grounds. Though purely a bay or salt-water duck, that
is, belonging to the subfamily =Fuligulinae=, it is not found to any
great extent on the salt-water marshes, preferring the higher lakes,
ponds and reservoirs of the mountain valleys and foothills. I found
them one season in great numbers on the San Rafael marshes, high up in
the mountains of Lower California, and all the shooting two friends
and myself wished to do had no effect in driving them away, although
the ponds of the marsh were few and small.
=Color=--Male--Head and neck, reddish chestnut; lower neck and upper
breast, sooty brown, a mixture of finely penciled lines of gray and
brown; speculum, gray; back, gray; feathers on the top of the head
almost form a crest; bill, lead color.
Female--Head and neck, light cinnamon brown, very pale on the sides of
the head near the bill, and throat nearly white; breast and shoulders,
dirty light brown, and back a darker dirty brown.
=Nest and Eggs=--The nest, like that of the canvasback, is generally
built in the marsh or on the low banks of a lake, usually lined with
down and contains about ten eggs of a brownish buff color.
=Measurements=--Total length, about 20 inches; wing, 8-1/4 to 8-1/2; bill
barely 2-1/4 inches.
[Illustration: AMERICAN SCAUP DUCK OR BLUE-BILL
(Aythya marila neartica)]