PINTAIL DUCK, 159 



observed to feed by preference in shallow water, and it 

 selects plants, insects and tlieir larvae, and mollusca. Sir 

 William Jardine mentions liaving once shot two, while they 

 were feeding in the evening on a wet stubble field, in com- 

 pany with the common wild-duck. This species is one of 

 the best of our various ducks for the table ; the flesh is 

 excellent, and in great esteem. The Pintails, however, do 

 not breed readily in confinement ; neither the Zoological 

 Society nor the Ornithological Society have succeeded in 

 this point with the Pintail Duck, though both parties retain 

 several pairs on the canal, ponds, and islands, apparently well 

 adapted to their habits, and where the males constantly un- 

 dergo that remarkable summer change in their plumage which 

 renders them for a time more like their females in appearance 

 than any other species in which this change is observed. 

 This alteration commences in July, partly effected by some 

 new feathers, and partly by a change in the colour of many 

 of the old feathers. At first one or more brown spots appear 

 in the white surface on the front of the neck ; these spots 

 increase in number rapidly, till the whole head, neck, breast, 

 and under surface have become brown ; the scapulars, wing- 

 coverts, and tertials, undergo, by degrees, the same change 

 from grey to brown. I have seen a single white spot re- 

 maining on the breast as late as the 4th of August ; but 

 generally by that time the males can only be distinguished 

 from females of the same species by their larger size, and 

 their beak remaining of a pale blue colour. In the female 

 the bill is dark brown. I have seen a male Pintail, confined 

 in the hutch of a dealer throughout the summer, that did not 

 exhibit any change at all. The following is Montagu's de- 

 scription of a male Pintail, after he had thrown off the mas- 

 culine plumage, taken on the 19th of August : — " Bill as 

 usual ; top of the head, and from thence down the back of 

 the neck, dusky and pale ferruginous, intermixed in minute 



