90 SUMMER DUCK. 



the nostrils, reaching nearly to the tip, which is also of the same color, 

 and furnished with a large hooked nail ; irides orange red ; front, crown, 

 and pendent crest rich glossy bronze green ending in violet, elegantly 

 marked with a line of pure white running from the upper mandible over 

 the eye, and with another band of white proceeding from behind the 

 eye, both mingling their long pendent plumes with the green and violet 

 ones, producing a rich effect ; cheeks and sides of the upper neck violet ; 

 chin, throat, and collar round the neck pure white, curving up in the 

 form of a crescent nearly to the posterior part of the eye ; the white 

 collar is bounded below with black ; breast dark violet brown, marked 

 on the fore part with minute triangular spots of white, increasing in 

 size until they spread into the white of the belly ; each side of the breast 

 is bounded by a large crescent of white, and that again by a broader 

 one of deep black ; sides under the wings thickly and beautifully marked 

 with fine undulating parallel lines of black, on a ground of yellowish 

 drab ; the flanks are ornamented with broad alternate semicircular 

 bands of black and white ; sides of the vent rich light violet ; tail- 

 coverts long, of a hair-like texture at the sides, over which they descend, 

 and of a deep black glossed with green ; back dusky bronze, reflecting 

 green ; scapulars black ; tail tapering, dark glossy green above, below 

 dusky ; primaries dusky, silvery hoary without, tipped with violet blue ; 

 secondaries greenish blue, tipped with white ; wing-coverts violet blue, 

 tipped with black ; vent dusky ; legs and feet yellowish red, claws 

 strong and hooked. 



The above is as accurate a description as I can give of a very perfect 

 specimen now before me, from which the figure in the plate was faith- 

 fully copied. 



The female has the head slightly crested, crown dark purple, behind 

 the eye a bar of white ; chin, and throat for two inches, also white ; 

 head and neck dark drab ; breast dusky brown, marked with large tri- 

 angular spots of white ; back dark glossy bronze brown, with some gold 

 and greenish reflections. Speculum of the wings nearly the same as in 

 the male, but the fine pencilling of the sides, and the long hair-like tail- 

 coverts, are wanting ; the tail is also shorter. 



