106 WATER FOWL OF INDIA AND ASIA. 
The Clucking Teal. 
Netttum formosum, BLANFORD, Faun. Brit. Ind., 
Birds, Vol. 1V,%p: 442: 
VERNACULAR NAMES :—None known. 
This species is considerably larger than the Common 
Teal, but hasa proportionately much shorter and broader 
bill ; the male also has long pointed scapulars like the 
Blue-winged Teal. 
The male’s plumage is somewhat complicated to de- 
scribe, but he cannot easily be mistaken for any other 
Duck, by reason of his buff head, with black crown se- 
parated by a white line from the metallic green streak 
passing back from the eye, and bleck throat sending up 
a black streak on each side to the lower eyelid. The 
back and rump are grey-brown, with an area of delicate 
blue-grey, formed by minute black and white lines, on 
each side of the shoulders, while pencilling re-appears 
on the flanks. The long pointed scapulars are chestnut, 
buff, and black, and the breast pinky-buff, darker at the 
sides and with black round spots in the middle. The 
belly is white, and the stern mostly black with chestnut 
edges and preceded by a white bar. The wing-bar shows 
first a cinnamon band, then a bronze-green one, then a 
black, and is finished off with white. The tertials are 
edged with buff. 
The female resembles the male in the colour of the 
wings ; otherwise she is mottled grey-brown, very like 
the female Common and Blue-winged Teal. But the 
wing-markings alone will easily distinguish her, to say 
nothing of the larger size with proportionately short 
bill, this being no longer than in the Common Teal. 
The male in undress is like the female, but with a 
redder breast and plain back. When nearly in full 
plumage the head-markings are dulled by fine brown 
