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Morillon

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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a name commonly given by fowlers to the female or immature male of the GOLDEN-EYE, the Clangula glaucion of modern ornithology, under the belief - which still very generally obtains among them, as it once did among naturalists - that they formed a distinct species of duck. The mistake no doubt originated in, and is partly excused by, the facts that the birds called Morillons were often of opposite sexes, and differed greatly from the adult male Golden-Eye, whose full and beautiful plumage is not assumed until the second year. The word is used in French in precisely the same form, but it is in that language applied to the Tufted Duck, Fuligula cristata, and is derived, according to Littre, from more, signifying black. (A. N.)