154 SPORTING ADVENTURES 



We bagged a few brace of the " Pato Keal" or 

 Royal Ducks, the finest ducks in Mexico or 

 indeed anywhere; they appear to be the original 

 wild stock of the Muscovy duck, and have the 

 same red wattles over the beak and eye, their 

 plumage is a lovely bronze green with a white 

 bar on the wings, their claws are of great length, 

 and they perch on trees, as the "pichichi" also do. 

 One fine old cock bird which we weighed turned 

 the scale at six pounds, and we were told that they 

 reached as much as nine pounds. Besides these 

 we killed several kinds of ibis, and some lovely 

 little water-rails, which latter are common in all 

 the marshes of Mexico; these little fellows, 

 though not bigger than a blackbird, have almost 

 the plumage of a pheasant, their breasts and 

 backs are of a rich, ruddy brown, with bright 

 yellow under their wings, beak and eyes red, 

 and a sharp red spur on the joint of the wing ; 

 the female is less brilliantly marked. They 

 have long yellow legs and very long toes, which 

 enable them to tread lightly over the leaves of 

 the water-lilies, and when they alight they keep 



