WATER FOWL OF INDIA AND ASIA. 3 
The Wood-duck. 
Asarcorms scutulata, BLANFORD, Faun. Brit. 
Ind, Birds, Vol. 1V, p. 424. 
VERNACULAR NAME :—Deo-hans, Assam. 
The Wood-duck is a very big, coarse-looking species 
which, properly perhaps, occupies a genus to itself, for 
although of late stated to be allied to the Comb-duck, 
it presents very many points of difference from that bird. 
Its beak, besides being longer than the shank, is flatter 
than the other’s, and inclined to widen instead of taper 
towards the tip, and does not grow a comb. The mid- 
dle toe is much longer than the shank, instead of only a 
little, as in the Comb-duck, and the tail is markedly 
rounded, not nearly square as in that bird. In short, 
the Wood-duck much more resembles in the matter of 
form the ordinary Ducks of the Mallard genus (Anas). 
An examination of the drake’s windpipe would probabty 
settle the matter. 
In colour the male is olive-brown above and dull chest- 
nut below, with a white head and neck much spotted 
with black, and a green-glossed black breast; the 
‘““ shoulders ” of the wings are white and the wing-bar 
slate-colour, separated from the white by a black band. 
The bill is orange or yellow blotched with black, the 
base becoming, in the male, swollen and red in the 
breeding-season ; the eyes crimson or brown, and feet 
orange or yellow. 
The female is like the male, but with paler bill and feet 
and considerably smaller. The male is over two teet 
and-a-half long with a fifteen-inch wing, shank nearly 
two and-a-half and bill nearly three inches. In both 
sexes the colour varies much according to the freshness 
of the plumage, newly-moulted birds being very bright 
and showing much more green gloss than those in old 
feathering. 
