430 PINTAIL. 



to lat. 50" ; while Messrs. Eagle Clarke and Laidlaw found pairs, 

 apparently nesting, in the Rhone delta. During the cold season it 

 is found over the rest of the Continent, as well as in Northern 

 Africa, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Indian region as far south as Borneo, 

 China and Japan ; its summer-range northward in Asia extending up 

 to lat. 72*^ on the Yenesei (Popham). In America also it has been met 

 with up to 72^^ N. lat. in Alaska, and thence eastward to Labrador; 

 its winter migrations reaching to the West Indies and Panama. 



The nest — generally placed among coarse herbage in a dry 

 situation, and often at a little distance from water — is deep and well 

 lined with down; the eggs, 7-10 in number, being pale bufhsh- 

 green in colour and rather elongated in form : measurements 2'i by 

 1*5 in. Incubation commences in May or June, according to the 

 locality. In winter this species resorts to salt-water estuaries ; or to 

 large open sheets of fresh-water, in the shallow portions of which it 

 finds succulent plants (and wild rice abroad), as well as insects 

 and their larvae, and small molluscs ; its flesh is therefore excel- 

 lent in flavour. It feeds with its head below the water, its long 

 tail being then raised in the air, and it is notoriously partial to the 

 company of Wigeon. By day it is rather a silent bird, but it utters 

 a low-toned quack at night, and in the pairing-time a short double 

 whistle. In confinement it breeds freely, and has been known to 

 pair with the Wigeon ; an interesting case is also on record of a male 

 Pintail and a Common Duck producing young half-breeds which 

 had offspring again by the father, while the three-quarter birds bred 

 again with the pure species. Its frequent hybridization with the 

 Mallard in a wild state has already been mentioned ; the half-bred 

 drake being a remarkably handsome bird. 



The adult male in spring has the head brown, shading into 

 greenish-black on the nape ; upper neck bronze, with a white stripe 

 down the neck on each side and meeting the white breast and belly ; 

 back and flanks mottled grey ; greater wing-coverts buff, followed 

 by a bronze-green wing-spot margined with black and white ; 

 tail black, the two central feathers much elongated ; under tail- 

 coverts black ; bill, legs and feet chiefly slate-grey. In July a 

 plumage like that of the female is assumed, and is retained until 

 October, but the bronze-green wing-spot is always present. Whole 

 length 26-29 in. (the central tail-feathers being sometimes 8'5 in.) ; wing 

 II in. The female is mottled-brown above and greyish-white below; 

 the long slender neck, greenish-bronze wing-spot, and the oblique 

 bufiish bars on the brown tail-feathers sufficing to distinguish her from 

 any other species. The young are like her in their first plumage. 



