Widgeon
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a genus of waterfowl closely allied to the teal. Although the term is applied carelessly to almost any wild duck but the mallard, it belongs properly to a single genus. If one is trying to locate the common American widgeon definitely by consulting a manual, it is well to remember that the scientific name is Mareca Americana. This widgeon is about twenty inches long with a wing spread of thirty-five inches. The bill is blue, with black at the base and tip. The head and neck are grayish, spotted with black. A green patch surrounds the eye. The top of the head is nearly white, giving the bird the name of "bald pate." The upper parts are spotted and pointed with black. The under parts are mostly white. The wing is white, tipped with black. The speculum is green. The widgeon breeds in Canada and winters in Central America . The sportsmen find it a hard bird to take. It comes down the wind cutting the air with a noise that gains for it the name of whistler. The habits of the widgeon are much like those of the canvasback, with which and the teals it customarily associates. Its food consists of such insects, seeds, roots, and worms as may be found by feeding in the water. The European widgeon is somewhat smaller. It is seen at times on the Atlantic coast of the United States and is not unknown on the Pacific. The head and neck of the European widgeon are of a reddish brown.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 description of the "bald pate" still fits the bird, though the spelling now standard in field guides is "wigeon" rather than "widgeon." The scientific name has gone in a full circle: the American wigeon was folded into the catch-all genus Anas for much of the twentieth century and only returned to Mareca americana when North American authorities revised duck classification in 2017. Modern work has also refined the diet Aiton gave as "insects, seeds, roots, and worms": wigeon are unusually vegetarian dabblers that graze on land and in shallows, and are well known for snatching pondweed brought up by diving ducks such as the canvasback the account mentions as their companion. The bird itself remains abundant, protected in the United States under the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act and hunted under seasonal limits, with lead shot banned for waterfowl since 1991.
Written for this edition, 2026.