726 • PINTAIL— PIPIT 



commonly applied in some parts of England, and especially by 

 some English writers, to the Guinea-fowl, but also by sailors to 

 the so-called Cape-Pigeon, Bastion capensis (Petrel). 



PINTAIL, properly the well-known DuCK, the male of which 

 has the two middle tail-coverts very much elongated and pointed, 



the Anas acuta of LinnjBUS and Dafila acuta of modern writers, one 



of the most graceful and beautiful of 

 the Anatinx or so-called " fresh- water '' 

 Ducks, though not distinguished by the 

 brilliance of its plumage. The drake 



Bill of Pintail. (After Swainson.) j^.^g ^ |^j.q^^.j^ ]^^^^^^ whence a dark stripe 



runs down the nape, contrasting Avith the pure white of the throat 

 and breast, which is continued upward along the side of the neck 

 almost to the base of the skull. The upper parts generally are 

 clothed with feathers marked with fine undulating bars of black and 

 very light grey, so as to look as of a lavender-colour at a distance, 

 against which the long and pointed scapulars, of a deep black with 

 a broad edging of greyish-white, shew conspicuously : the blue- 

 green speculum of the wing is bordered above by a rust-coloured 

 and below by a white bar. The female is still more modestlj^ clad, 

 but the characteristic speculum and a somewhat elongated tail easily 

 serve to her recognition. The Pintail is common to both areas of 

 the Holarctic Region, and though not reaching its extreme circum- 

 polar lands, breeds over most of the northern parts of both New 

 and Old Worlds ; but few unquestionable instances of its doing so in 

 the British Islands, except as a captive, are known. Three other 

 species of the genus Dafila exist, and they resemble D. acuta in the 

 slenderness of their form, which extends even to the bill, and their 

 pointed tail. Two belong to South America (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1876, 

 pp. 392, 393), and the third is the "Eed-billed Teal" of South Africa. 

 The name Pintail is applied in the colonies and elsewhere by 

 English-speaking sportsmen to set'eral other birds, as to one of the 

 Grouse of North America, Pecliocmies, and to one of the Sand- 

 Grouse, Pterocles setarius. 



PIPING CROW, see Gymnorhina. 



PIPIRI, one of several local names of Tyrannus griseus or domini- 

 censis, a Tyrant that is widely spread throughout most parts of the 

 West Indies. 



PIPIT, French Pijnt, cognate with the Latin Pipio (see Pigeon, 

 p. 723), the name applied by ornithologists to a group of bii^ds 

 having a great resemblance both in habits and appearance to the 

 Larks, with which they were formerly confounded by systematists 

 as they are at the present day in popular speech, but differing from 

 them in several important characters ; and, having been first separ- 



