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The Smew. Albellus.
Numb. LXXXIX.
iT weighs about twenty four Ounces ; its Length from the Point of the Bill to the
End of the Tail is eighteen Inches and a half ; its Breadth when extended is twenty
feven Inches,
Its Head and Neck is white, except a black Spot under the Creft, which it hath
hanging down backward from behind its Head, encompaffing the Creft, and ending in an
acute Angle below, and another on each Side extending from the Angles of the Mouth to
the Eyes ; the Breaft, Belly and under Side are white ; the Back and Wings are black and
white, agreeably mixed on each Side, with feveral arcuate Lines of black, half incircling
the Neck, refembling half a Collar.
The Tail is duiky, between aih coloured and black, compofed of fixteen Feathers three
Inches and a half long; the middle Feathers are longeft, the reft on each Side gradually Ihor-
tening to the outermoft.
The Bill is of a cinereous or Lead Colour, but at the Tip of each Mandible is a Spot of
fordid white; it is thicker at the Head, growing flenderer by degrees towards the Point,
and narrower and lefs than the Duck-kind; the upper Mandible is hooked at the End, and
toothed on the Sides ; the Noftrils are oblong, open, and at a good Diftance from the Feathers
j the Eyes are of a dark Colour; the Legs of a dark Lead Colour, the Toes being join’d
by a duiky Membrane; the foremoft Toe and back Toe have lateral appendant Membranes
reaching their whole Length.
TheWind-Pipe at the Divarication ends in a great, ftrong, bony Veflel, which is called
a Labyrinth, whence proceed the two Branches tending to the Lungs : This Bird hath
but one blind Gut, which is ihort and blunt; the Wind-Pipe is faftned to the upper Angle
of the Merry-thought, by a tranfverfe Ligament, and then afcends upwards to the Labyrinth;
it feeds upon Fifties.
It hath a large Gall, oblong Tefticles, and the Guts have many Revolutions ; the Stomach
is larger than in graniverous Birds, and lefs mufculous, in which you will commonly
find Fifties.
The whole Head and Cheeks of the Female are red or fulvous, and the Throat white;
on the Beginning of the Breaft above the Craw, there is feen as it were a Collar of a darker
or brown Colour, and it hath no Creft; all the upper Side except the Wings is of a
duiky afti Colour, or brown; about the middle of each Wing are two tranfverfe white Lines;
and in all other Particulars it agrees with the Male.
They feldom come into England but in hard Winters, and then not in large Flocks,
but three or four together.
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