140 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I50 



ANAS ACUTA Linnaeus: Pintail; Pato Rabudo 

 Anas acuta Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, vol. 1, 1758, p. 126, (Sweden.) 



Of medium size, with long, slender neck, and pointed tail; wing 

 speculum bronze green or grayish brown with a bronze sheen. 



Description. — Length 580 to 710 mm. Male, head and hindneck 

 grayish brown; back gray, finely lined with black; long scapulars 

 and tertials black, bordered with gray; wing coverts brownish gray; 

 long, pointed middle tail feathers black; foreneck and under parts 

 white; sides barred finely with black; under tail coverts black, 

 speculum bronze green. 



Female, blackish brown, spotted and streaked with buff; below 

 dull white mottled with brown ; speculum grayish brown with a sheen 

 of bronze green ; tail pointed, but shorter than in the male. 



Measurements (from Delacour, Waterfowl World, vol. 2, 1956, p. 

 131).— Males, wing 254-287, tail 172-209, culmen 48-59, tarsus 39-44 

 mm. 



Females, wing 242-266, tail 114-127, culmen 45-50, tarsus 38-42 

 mm. 



An irregular winter migrant. At times abundant. 



Published reports of this duck are based mainly on its inclusion by 

 Lawrence (Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist, New York, 1863, p. 13) in a list of 

 birds sent to him without supporting specimens by James McLeannan. 

 The records of the La Jagua Hunting Club segregated ducks killed by 

 species beginning in 1936. The pintail appears first in 1938 when 45 

 were shot, and figures annually to the end of the record in 1943, 

 when 47 were taken. There seem to have been few present in 1941 

 when only 3 were shot, and in 1942 when 6 were killed. In 1949 

 at La Jagua I saw one killed by Baldomiro Moreno on March 12, 

 when the flight was nearly at end. Earlier they had been common. 

 Moreno caught one alive while night hunting on March 29, probably 

 a cripple. One banded by Ian Cowan at Murphy Lake, 150-mile 

 House, Kamloops District, British Columbia, August 1, 1954, was 

 reported by Karl Curtis as killed at the La Jagua Hunting Club on 

 December 15 in the same year. There are 5 additional returns of 

 banded birds from La Jagua and of 9 others from Bocas del Toro, 

 Los Santos, and Code. On January 2, 1955 I saw one at a pozo 

 above La Jagua, and learned that several thousand had been present 

 through December. On January 8 I was told that thousands of ducks, 

 including many pintails, rested on bars at the mouth of the Rio Chico. 

 The birds continued to be abundant through January, and Karl Curtis 

 told me that 10 were shot February 2. Pintails have been reported 

 there in greater or lesser number annually since that time. 



