786 THE WOOD DUCK. 
one by one, the pair remaining (and | think the male was the same that 
originated the pursuit) settled in one of the ponds.” 
Pintails are common with us only in winter, and they are the first of the 
River Ducks to move northward in the early spring. While they are lovers of 
fresh water, and prefer the secluded lakes and pools of the interior, they are of 
regular occurrence on salt water during the migrations, and are most in evi- 
dence on Puget Sound in February, when the northward movement is under 
full headway. They nest chiefly north of our borders and are counted the 
most abundant breeding River Ducks in western Alaska. A few, however, 
remain to breed in eastern Washington. We found a nest at Brook Lake, 
which, having escaped the mower, fell a victim to the horse-rake, so that only 
seven of ten eggs were spared us. 
The young after hatching are kept in the most secluded depths of the 
swamp, and it was a very lucky chance which placed two of these promising 
youngsters in the benevolent clutches of Messrs. Finley and Bohlman, on 
Tulé Lake in southern Oregon. A bird on the photographic plate is worth 
two on the dinner plate, but the flavor of the Pintail is so delicious that one 
might be pardoned for desiring both. 
No. 315. 
WOOD DUCK. 
VA. O. U. No. 144. Aix sponsa (Linn.). 
Synonyms.—SumMer Duck. “Tur Brive.” 
Description.—Adult male: Of almost indescribable elegance; head, crested, 
metallic and iridescent green, purple, violet, and black; a white line from angle 
of upper mandible along crown, and another backward from behind eye, both 
continued in the feathers of the large occipital crest; throat white, sending up 
two transverse bars on either side on cheek and hind-neck; fore-neck and breast 
rich chestnut, glossed with purplish on sides of breast, and marked centrally with 
triangular white spots, which increase in size backward; belly broadly white; 
sides warm fulvous, minutely waved with black, the tips of the outermost feathers 
with broad crescentic bars of black and white; chestnut of breast and fulvous 
of sides separated by two transverse bars, the front one white, the hinder black; 
upperparts chiefly sooty or velvety black with metallic reflections of blue, purple, 
green, and bronze; the anterior and marginal coverts and base of primaries (all 
mostly concealed) plain fuscous; exposed tips of primaries silvery white, on 
outer web tipped with metallic blue; secondaries white-tipped, the exposed webs 
metallic; crissum sooty-brown with metallic gloss; flank-patches intense purplish 
chestnut; axillars and lining of wings white, spotted or barred with dusky; “bill 
(in life) beautifully varied with jet-black, milk-white, lilac, red, orange, and 
yellow; legs and feet orange, claws black; iris and edges of eye-lid red.” Adult 
female and young: Crest only faintly indicated; top of head purplish brown 
