8 PINTAIL. 



The male bird assumes the plumage of the female in the 

 summer. 



In the female, which is less than the male, the bill is 

 slate-colour. The forehead and head on the crown, light 

 reddish brown, speckled, or rather streaked, with very dark 

 brownish black; sides of the head, pale dull yellowish, speckled 

 with black; neck, pale brown, speckled with very dark brown; 

 the white list is wanting. Chin and throat, c'ream-colour; 

 breast, dull white, obscurely spotted with brown, on the sides 

 dusky brown, the feathers barred and tipped with white, 

 below it is cream yellow, irregularly spotted with brown. 

 Back, dark brown, the feathers being nearly black in the 

 middle, and pale brown or yellowish white on the edges. 

 Greater and lesser wing coverts, pale purple brown, with 

 margins and tips of white. Primaries, dusky brown; the 

 secondaries have the speculum brownish bronze green, with 

 white tips to the feathers; tertiaries, dusky brown, margined 

 with white. The tail is long and pointed, dark brown, 

 varied with imperfect bars of pale brownish yellow and white, 

 the two middle feathers are only about half an inch longer 

 than the others; under tail coverts, white, with chesnut 

 brown spots. Legs and toes, brownish grey; webs, brownish 

 grey. 



A duck of this kind, a male, kept in confinement, as 

 presently mentioned, did not exhibit the summer change of 

 plumage, but an 'Exceptio probat .regulam.' 



In the young the white of the breast has a yellowish tinge. 



Yarrell writes as follows on the subject of the fact alluded 

 to: 'The males constantly undergo that remarkable summer 

 change in their plumage, which renders them for a time 

 more like the females in appearance than any other species 

 in which the 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 ones. 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. 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 the 

 beak remaining of a pale blue colour; in the female the bill 

 is dark brown. I have seen a male Pintail confined in the 



