.EX GALERICULATA G7 



exception just noted; it is, liowcver, fjcnerally rather bigger and often more 

 clearly coloured. 



Amongst the first indications of sex-plumage assumed by the young 

 male is the deepening of the plumage of the breast and upper neck. A 

 specimen (b) in the British Museum collection shows this beautifully, and 

 looks much as if the change here undergone was one of colouration in the 

 feathers themselves. 



Tiie same bird has the broad secondary partially developed, but has no 

 white edging to the outer web, so presumably this is not assumed until tlie 

 second year ; this feather is also not so much falcated as in the adult bird. 

 Tlie adult colouration of the scapulars is only indicated by a few blue tints, 

 but the lilack and white bars on the sides of the breast are well advanced. 



Nestling'. — ,\hove hair-brown, the edge of the wing pale-buff and two 

 indefinite bars of the same colour on tlie sides, one in front and one behind 

 the thigh. Under parts wholly pale-butt' ; a dark-brown streak running from 

 behind the eye to the neck and another from behind the ear-coverts. 



Distribution. — The Mandarin is a purely Eastern Asiatic Duck, 

 being distributed, according to Salvadori, throughout " Central and 

 Southern China, Formosa and Japan ; Amoorland only during the 

 breeding season." It has also been obtained in Corea, and once in 

 India, in Lakhimpur, Assam. 



It is not long since Gates wrote : " This beautiful duck is not 

 unlikely to be met with on the borders of the Shan States " ; but it 

 has now been obtained far more west. 



Nidification. — As regards its nidification, very little is known; it 

 seems to breed everywhere through the north of its range, perhaps 

 also wherever it is found. It appears, however, to visit the Amoov 

 and the more northern extremes of its habitat only during the 

 breeding-season, so that it is probably locally migratory. It is one 

 of the species of ducks which build in trees, and in captivity breeds 

 very freely. 



W. Evans in the ' Ibis ' (1891, p. 73), giving the period of incuba- 

 tion for various birds, gives that of this duck as thirty days, whilst 

 Finn gives it as twenty-six. In the Zoological Gardens up to 1874, 

 the Mandarin had hatched eggs no less than twenty-six times, the 

 earliest date for the young to appear being the 31st May, 1858, and 

 the latest July lOth, 1874. As the normal climate in which the duck 

 breeds is not unlike the English climate, except in the extreme north, 

 these dates will probably coincide with its breeding-season when in its 



