720 PINT AIL—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, Daption 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 Linneus and Dafila acuta of modern writers, one 
of the most graceful and beautiful of 
the Anatine or so-called ‘“ fresh-water ” 
Ducks, though not distinguished by the 
brilliance of its plumage. The drake 
has a brown head, whence a dark stripe 
runs down the nape, contrasting with 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 modestly 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 Dajila 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 ‘“‘Red-billed Teal” of South Africa. 
The name Pintail is applied in the colonies and elsewhere by 
English-speaking sportsmen to several other birds, as to one of the 
GrousE of North America, Pediocewtes, and to one of the SAND- 
GROUSE, Pterocles setarius. 
PIPING CROW, see GYMNORHINA. 
PIPIRI, one of several local names of Tyrannus griseus or donwn- 
censis, a TYRANT that is widely spread throughout most parts of the 
West Indies. 
PIPIT, French Pipit, cognate with the Latin Pipio (see PIGEON, 
p- 723), the name applied by ornithologists to a group of birds 
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- 
—— ZZ 
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3ILL OF PinTaIL. (After Swainson.) 
