410 TEN YEAES IN SWEDEN. 



Anatince. Ducks. 

 Gen. Anas, L. 



Legs placed under the middle of the body ; tarsus round, 

 about as long as middle toe ; beak the length of the head, 

 of an even breadth throughout, high at the root, sometimes 

 broader at the tip ; a nail on the tip, and the upper man- 

 dible furnished with lamellae visible at the sides ; nostrils 

 placed in a small nasal furrow, much nearer the base of the 

 beak than its tip, and near the top ridge of the beak ; wings 

 pointed, first and second wing feathers longest ; wing specu- 

 lum with a metallic gloss ; hind toe bare, without lobe. 



The species belonging to this division are not true diving 

 ducks, like the Fuligulce. They are generally larger, the 

 males handsomer, and they live principally in fresh water 

 during the whole year. Little difference between the sum- 

 mer and winter plumage, except for about two months, in 

 July and August, when the male assumes a dull plumage 

 like the female. Are all summer migrants to the North. 



257. ANAS TADORNA,L. Graf And. The Sheldrake. D. F. 

 Variegated white-black and brown-red ; wing specu- 

 lum green, fringed above with a brown-red band ; beak 

 red, with a large knob on the base in the breeding 

 season; legs red, or in the young red-grey; head 

 green; neck white; breast red-yellow; shoulders 

 black; back, sides of the breast, and belly, pure whifcej 

 tail white, with a black tip. Little difference in the 

 plumage of the sexes, but the female is smallest, and 

 never has a knob on the beak. 



As the duck's eggs are often difficult to distinguish, I 

 shall try and describe them as well as I can, from authentic 

 specimens in my own collection. 



The sheldrake breeds, as far as I know, only in the 

 south of Sweden. I cannot say whether it is met with on the 

 south-west coast of Norway. It certainly does not go up 

 within the Polar circle, and in the Baltic no higher than 

 Kalmar Land, in Sweden. A specimen however, according 

 to Nordvi, has been shot in "Waranger Fjord, near the North 



