55 WATER FOWL OF INDIA AND ASIA. 
inches. The female, though little smaller, is, of course, much 
shorter on account of the different tail. This handsome Duck 
is as distinct in‘ habits as in appearance. It is an Arctic bird, 
ranging all round the northernmost parts of the Northern 
Hemisphere, and migrating south in winter as far as Italy on the 
one side and South Carolina on the other. It is found in China 
and Japan at this season. In its winter haunts it is mainly a 
sea-duck, and the most oceanic of all, feeding in mid-water on 
small crustacea, etc., so that it is independent of the bottom. 
It is a fine diver, and, unlike most diving-ducks, lively and 
active on the wing, and ready to take flight. The call is a loud 
gabbling note and often uttered : in fact, the birds are so noisy 
that they are ungallantly called ‘‘ Old-Squaw’’ in America. 
They breed in high latitudes, laying, about midsummer, half-a- 
dozen or more greyish-buff eggs in a nest on the ground. 
The Harlequin Duck. 
Cosmonetta histrionica, SALVADORI, Brit. Mus. Cat., 
Birds, Voli XOXViIE pi 305 
Shinori-gamo, Japanese. 
The Harlequin is another rather small Duck of striking 
appearance with a short bill about the length of the shank. 
The tail is of rather more than ordinary length, and pointed, but 
not excessively long. 
The male is mostly of a curious dark slaty-blue colour, more 
what one would expect in a pigeon than a duck, with the wings 
back and tail black, and flanks chestnut ; there is also a streak 
of chestnut along the head from each eye, and the plumage 1s 
curiously diversified by white markings—a stripe along each side 
of the crown, a patch in front of the eyes and one over each ear, 
a stripe down the side of the neck, a bar across the neck at the 
lower part, and another in front of the wing, and sundry 
markings on the shoulders, and inner wing-feathers. The bill 
is slate-coloured and the legs brown ; the eyes dark. 
The female is drab above, getting paler on the underparts, 
with a dirty white forehead and a white patch before the eye, 
and spot on the ear, as in the drake ; the underparts are also 
marked with white. 
The male is about seventeen inches long, with the bill and 
shank rather over an inch, and the closed wing eight inches. 
The distribution of this Duck is curious ; it inhabits Greenland 
and Iceland, but is rare in Europe; it is at home in the Far 
East of Northern Asia and visits Japan in winter; it also breeds 
