134 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, I50 



From 1936 to 1942 records of the La Jagua Hunting Club show 

 this species as one of importance as game until at the very end of 

 the period it showed great decrease in number. A few still remain, as 

 I saw several here at the end of June 1953. They are subject to little 

 hunting pressure now during May and June, as that period marks 

 the usual end of the shooting season. 



Little is known of their nesting in Panama except that the eggs are 

 reported from hollows in trees. Karl Curtis was told of one nest 

 with 25 in a hollow stub at the Cienaga Macana. In color the eggs 

 are ivory white. Measurements given by Schonwetter (Handb. Ool. 

 pt. 2, 1960, p. 124) for the species as a whole (without regard to 

 geographic races) are as follows : 44-58 X 29-42 mm. 



These ducks are popular as captives and, kept usually in pairs, live 

 well in a domesticated state. Young birds may be tethered by a cord 

 tied about the neck or to one leg, but they soon become tame so 

 that they are allowed to range in freedom among the usual domestic 

 fowl. In view of the regular commerce that existed with the Spanish 

 mainland in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries it is quite 

 probable that captive ducks of this species recorded in Jamaica by 

 Gosse in 1847, and by March in 1866, may have come in part from 

 Panama. 



A northern race, Dendrocygna a. fulgens Friedmann, with the 

 breast, foreneck, and back deeper reddish brown, that ranges from 

 Costa Rica north to southern Texas, may come to extreme western 

 Panama, but to date it has not been recorded. 



CAIRINA MOSCHATA (Linnaeus): Muscovy Duck; Pato Real 

 Figure 23 

 Anas moschata Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, vol. 1, 1758, p. 124, (Brazil.) 



Largest of the ducks found in Panama; brownish black, with a 

 greenish sheen. 



Description. — Length, male, 760 to 840 mm., female 580 to 610 

 mm. Male, with a prominent crest, and fleshy reddish caruncles over 

 the eye and at the base of the bill ; grayish black underneath ; blacker 

 above with a sheen of green, particularly on the wings, changing to 

 violet on the upper back ; under side of wing and wing coverts white, 

 the latter forming a prominent patch. 



Female, similar but duller, with caruncles on head reduced or 

 absent. 



Immature, duller in color, with white in wing reduced to a few 

 feathers in the greater coverts. 



