WATER FOWL OF INDIA AND ASIA. 79 
is chestnut, with a cream patch from beak to crown ; 
the breast brownish pink ; the tail-coverts are black ; 
the “ shoulder ’’ of the wing white, as is the belly ; the 
wing-bar on the secondaries metallic green. 
The male in undress is of a general reddish brown hue, 
mottled with darker, with blue-grey “shoulders ”’ to 
the wings, and a white belly. 
The female is mottled with dark and light brown with 
a white belly, and has usually no bar on the wing. The 
young resemble her, but the young male shows some 
green on the wing. 
The bill is French-grey with a black tip, and the feet 
grey ; the eyes dark. 
The male measures about nineteen inches, with a 
bill of an inch and three-quarters and shank a little 
less. The wing is ten inches long. Females are little 
smaller. 
The Wigeon inhabits Europe, North Africa, and 
Asia, breeding to the north and migrating southward in 
winter. It occurs sometimes on the North American 
coast, but the common Wigeon of North America is 
a distinct, though closely allied, species, Mareca 
americana.* To India and Burma the Wigeon is a 
fairly common visitor; it has not been recorded from 
Ceylon, nor in the Peninsula south of Mysore. It is 
somewhat local and irregular in its appearance where 
meoccurs ; thus Mr. Oates failed to find 1t in Pegu, 
though McMaster found it common there, as Hume 
did in Manipur, and Vidal “in some years” in 
Ratnagiri. The name Wigeon is often misapplied ; 
for instance, the Ducks so-called in South Africa and 
Australia are not Wigeon at all. 
* In this the male has the head buff thickly speckled with black, with 
a green streak behind the eye, but with the same cream-coloured fore- 
head as our bird; and the dull pink of the breast extends along the 
flanks. In other respects the plumage is like that of our Wigeon, and 
females are almost indistinguishable ; this species has occurred in Europe, 
and might possibly do as on the Chinese coast. 
