WILD DUCK. 19 
Greater and lesser wing coverts, brown, the lower range 
having pale brown tips; the speculum is dark green, glossed 
with purple. The tail is wedge-shaped, with the two middle 
feathers black, narrow, and pointed, and much longer than the 
others, which are brown, margined with white; upper tail 
coverts, greenish black, glossed with purple; under tail coverts, 
also greenish black, with a purple gloss. Legs and toes, pale 
orange; webs, pale orange. 
Temminck says that the males of this kind appear to vary 
very much in the degree of purity of the tints of their plumage, 
and in the colour and form of the two large spots on the 
neck. One specimen was covered in part only with the 
variegated plumage of the Mallard, while all the rest was like 
that of the female, but dotted here and there with some feathers 
of the male. The top of the head alone exhibited some red 
colour at the tips of the feathers, the metallic green also being 
clouded with black at the end of the white feathers. 
