i66 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



An important communication was read from Dr. E. A. S. Elliot, at a meeting 

 of the Ornithological Club, in London, on May 3Oth, 1896, in connection with the 

 seasonal change in this Duck from the winter to the summer plumage. This is 

 a complete moult of the pattern on the head, neck, and dorsal region in the male, 

 and a thorough moult in the female, except the white feathers of the belly and 

 wings, and supposed to bring them more in harmony with the surroundings of 

 their summer homes, and less likely to attract the notice of predatory bird and 

 beast. 



The moult is completed by the end of May, and the long sickle-shaped white 

 scapulars of the male are the last to disappear. The down on the breast and 

 belly of the female, and used for lining the nest, is a distinct new growth ; it is 

 darker than eider down. 



In winter the adult has the head and neck white, with a long oblong brownish 

 patch on each side of the latter ; the breast, back, wing-coverts, and inner 

 secondaries chocolate-brown ; scapulars white ; the long narrow central tail feathers 

 brown, the next pair partly white and brown, the remainder mostly white ; sides 

 ashy-grey ; lower breast, abdomen, and lower tail-coverts white. In May the males 

 put on their brown caps and the rest of the very characteristic summer plumage. 



The female in winter has sometimes been mistaken for that of the Harlequin 

 Duck. In the former, however, the parts below the breast are white, in the 

 other they are less pure and more mottled ; flanks reddish-brown. 



Saxby gives the colour in winter of the soft parts, when fresh killed, in the 

 adult male, bill to nostrils and nail black, the intervening space pale rose colour, 

 but this rapidly fades in a few hours to reddish-brown ; eyes amber ; tarsi and 

 toes dark lead colour ; membrane and claws nearly black. In spring the baud on 

 the bill changes to brownish-pink, and the irides yellowish-brown. The trachea in 

 the male is very singular, having five oval openings at the side of the tube near 

 the bottom, and closed with a thin membrane, also a large kidney-shaped tympanum, 

 membranous in front. 



The generic term Harelda, first applied to this species by Stephens, in 1824, 

 is probably a false spelling of Havelda, a word derived from its ordinary Icelandic 

 name. 



