THE HARLEQUIN DUCK. 515 



surface while the others are below in search of food, and, if 

 alarmed, it utters a short quack, when the others rise to the 

 surface ; and, on ascertaining the cause of the alarm, all 

 dive and swim off rapidly to the distance of several hundred 

 feet. The Buffle-head breeds in the northern portions of 

 the continent. It nests in the holes of dead trees, like the 

 preceding. The eggs are from five to eight in number. 



HISTRIONICUS, LESSON. 



Histrionicus, LESSON, Man. d'Ornith., II. (1828) 415. (Type Anas histrionica, L.) 

 Bill very small; the culmen shorter than tarsus, tapering rapidly to the rounded 

 tip, which is entirely occupied by the nail ; nostrils small, in the anterior portion of 

 posterior half of bill; the centre about opposite the middle of commissure; a well- 

 marked angle at the postero-superior corner of the bill; the lateral outline con- 

 cave behind, the feathers on forehead extending a little beyond it; those of chin not 

 reaching further than those of the sides, and much posterior to the nostrils; lateral 

 outline of edge of bill nearly straight; a membranous lobe at the base of the bill; 

 tertials bent outward, so as to cross the edge of the wing; tail more than half the 

 wing, considerably pointed, of fourteen feathers. 



HISTRIONICUS TORQUATUS. Bonaparte. 

 The Harlequin Duck. 



Anas histrionica, Linnaeus. Syst. Nat., I. (1758) 127. Wils. Am. Orn., VIII. 

 (1814) 139. 



Fuligula ( Clangula] histrionica, Bonaparte. Syn. (1828), 394. Nutt. Man., II. 448. 



Fuligula histrionica, Audubon. Orn. Biog., III. (1835) 612; V. (1839) 617. /&., 

 Birds Am., VI. (1843)374. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Male. Head and neck all round dark-blue; jugulum, sides of breast, and upper 

 parts, lighter blue, becoming bluish-black again on the tail coverts; the blue of 

 breast passes insensibly into dark bluish-brown behind ; a broad stripe along the 

 top of head from the bill to the nape, and the tail feathers, black ; a white patch 

 along the entire side of the base of bill anterior to the eye, and passing upwards 

 and backwards so as to border the black of the crown, but replaced from above the 

 eye to the nape by chestnut; a round spot on the side of the occiput; an elongated 

 one on the side of the neck ; a collar round the lower part of the neck, interrupted 

 before and behind, and margined behind, by dark-blue; a transversely elongated 

 patch on each side the breast, and similarly margined ; a round spot on the middle 

 wing coverts, a transverse patch on the end of the greater coverts, the scapulars in 

 part, a broad streak on the outer web of tertials, and a spot on each side the rest of 

 the tail, white; sides of body behind chestnut-brown; secondaries with a metallic 

 speculum of purplish or violet-blue ; inside of wing, and axillars, dark-brown ; iris 

 reddish-brown. 



