BLUE-WINGED TEAL. 397 



purple, with blue reflections. Pendant occipital crest green and au- 

 ricula-purple, marked with two narrow white lines, one of them ter- 

 minating behind the eye, the other extending over the eye to the bill. 

 Sides of the neck purplish-red, changing on the front of the neck 

 and sides of the breast to bright chestnut-brown, and there sprinkled 

 with small pencil-shaped spots of white. Scapulars, wings, and tail, 

 exhibiting a play of duck green, purple, blue, and velvet-black 

 colors : interscapulars, posterior part of the back, rump, and upper 

 tail coverts, blackish-green and purple ; several of the lateral coverts 

 reddish-orange on their outer webs ; a hair-like splendent, reddish- 

 purple tuft on each side of the rump ; the under coverts brown. Chin, 

 throat, and collar round the neck, a crescentic bar on the ears, the 

 middle of the breast, and whole of the abdomen, white. Flanks yel- 

 lowish-grey, finely waved with black, the tips of the long feathers, and 

 also of those on the shoulder, broadly barred with white and black. 

 Inner wing coverts white, barred with dusky. Almost all the colored 

 plumage shows a play of colors with metallic lustre. Bill, shorter 

 than the head, considerably narrowed towards the point, like that of 

 the Eider ; its height at the rictus greater than its width, and its 

 frontal angles prolonged ; the mandibles strongly toothed ; the nail 

 strong, and much curved down. Nostrils large and pervious ; the 

 forehead sloping. Color of the bill red ; a space between the 

 nostrils, its tip, margins, and lower mandible, black. Legs orange. 

 Occipital crest long and pendant. Wings shorter than the tail, which 

 consist of 14 wide and rounded feathers, the two large inferior 

 coverts nearly as large and strong as the tail feathers. 



The female wants the fine lines on the flanks, and the hair-like 

 tufts on the sides of the rump. The crest is also shorter ; and the 

 plumage is less vivid, particularly about the head, where it is mostly 

 brown. 



BLUE-WINGED TEAL. 



(Anas discors, Lin. Wilsox, viii. p. 74. pi. 68. fig. 4. Boxap. Sy- 

 nops. No. 329. Richard. North. Zool. ii. p. 444. Le Sarcelle 

 d'Amerique, Briss. vi. p. 452, 35. Buff. ix. p. 279. PI. Enlum. 

 966. Catesby, i. pi. 100. White-faced Duck, Latii. Synops. iii. 

 p. 502. Penn. Arct. Zool. ii. No. 503. Phil. Museum, No. 2846.) 

 34 



