256 ANATIDJS. 



but the assumption is gradual. White spots first appear 

 among the brown feathers on the front of the neck ; by 

 the end of the second week in October the front of the 

 neck and breast is mottled with brown and white; at 

 the end of the third week in October a few brown spots 

 only remain on the white. 



These birds form their nests in rushes and strong 

 herbage, producing seven or eight eggs, which are greenish 

 white in colour, and rather elongated in form, measuring 

 two inches one line in length, by one inch five lines in 

 breadth. Montagu mentions " that the notes of the 

 Pintail are extremely soft and inward ; the courting 

 note is always attended with a jerk of the head ; the other 

 greatly resembles that of a very young kitten. In the 

 spring the male Pintail indicates his feelings by suddenly 

 raising his body upright in the water, and bringing his 

 bill close to his breast, uttering at the same time a soft 

 note. This gesticulation is frequently followed by a sin- 

 gular jerk of the hinder part of the body, which in turn is 

 thrown up above the water." Montagu mentions also that 

 Pintails have bred in confinement ; and Lord Stanley 

 informed him he had a hybrid brood produced two seasons 

 following between a female Pintail and a male Wigeon ; 

 the hybrid birds laid eggs during two successive seasons, 

 but they were unproductive. In December 1831, the 

 Honourable Twiselton Fiennes exhibited at the Zoological 

 Society a specimen of a hybrid Duck, bred between a male 

 Pintail and a common Duck. It was one of a brood of 

 six, several of which were subsequently confined with the 

 male Pintail from which they sprung, and produced young. 

 A specimen of a female of this second brood was also 

 exhibited, and these three part-bred Pintails having bred 

 again with the true Pintail, have now lost all the ap- 

 pearance of the common Duck. 



