PINTAIL DUCK. 259 



rapid. It is observed to feed by preference in shallow 

 water, and it selects plants, insects, their larvae, and moK 

 lusca. Sir William Jardine mentions having once shot 

 two, while they were feeding in the evening on a wet 

 stubble field, in company with the common Wild Duck. 

 This species is one of the best of our various Ducks for 

 the table ; the flesh is excellent, and in great esteem. 

 The Pintails, however, do not breed readily in confine- 

 ment ; neither the Zoological Society nor the Ornitholo- 

 gical Society have succeeded in this point with the Pin- 

 tail Duck, though both parties retain several pairs on the 

 canal, ponds, and islands, apparently well adapted to their 

 habits, and where the males constantly undergo that re- 

 markable summer change in their plumage which renders 

 them for a time more like their females in appearance 

 than any other species in which this change is observed. 

 This alteration commences in July, partly effected by 

 some new feathers, and partly by a change in the colour 

 of many of the old feathers. At first one or more brown 

 spots appear in the white surface on the front of the neck ; 

 these spots increase in number rapidly, till the whole head, 

 neck, breast, and under surface have become brown ; 

 the scapulars, wing-coverts, and tertials, undergo, by de- 

 grees, the same change from grey to brown. I have seen 

 a single white spot remaining on the breast as late as the 

 4th of August ; but generally by that time the males can 

 only be distinguished from females of the same species by 

 their larger size, and their beak remaining of a pale blue 

 colour. In the female the bill is dark brown. I have 

 seen a male Pintail, confined in the hutch of a dealer 

 throughout the summer, that did not exhibit any change 

 at all. The following is Montagu's description of a male 

 Pintail, after he had thrown off the masculine plumage, 

 taken on the 19th of August: " Bill as usual; top of 



