Printed on the plate
“Velvet Duck”
Male, 1. Female, 2.
Modern identification
Melanitta deglandi
- Certain
- Ducks, Geese, and Waterfowl · Anatidae
Why
Audubon's “Velvet Duck” (Fuligula fusca) is today's White-winged Scoter: eBird 2025 splits the Velvet Scoter, whose name stays with the Old World bird, and Audubon's birds were American, with the black knob and red-sided bill he describes and the plate shows. audubon.org agrees
Sources
engraved legend; Audubon, Ornithological Biography iii (1835); Baird, Brewer & Ridgway, Water Birds of North America ii (1884); audubon.org; the plate
Who made the plate
Drawn from Nature, by J. J. Audubon. F. R. S. F. L. S.Engraved, Printed, & Coloured, by R. Havell. London. 1835.
- John James Audubon drew
- Robert Havell Jr. engraved, printed and coloured
As the credit line gives it. More on who made these plates.
