canvasback

canvas +‎ back

canvasback (plural canvasbacks)

1. A North American wild duck, Aythya valisineria, popular as a game bird.
   • 1857 The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster

     Yesterday, I received a great present from Mr. Webster, from Washington; a large basket of canvasback ducks and a large turkey.

   • 1904, Alfred Henry Lewis, “How a President is Bred”, in The President: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: A[lfred] S[mith] Barnes and Company, →OCLC, page 24:

     The native State of Patrick Henry Hanway was a moss-grown member of the republic and had been one of the original thirteen. It possessed with other impedimenta a moss-grown aristocracy that borrowed money, devoured canvasbacks, drank burgundy, wore spotless tow in summer, clung to the duello, and talked of days of greatness which had been before the war.