BIRDS OF INDIANA. 60? 



by Prof. W. S. Blatchley near Harrodsburg, May 8, 1896, an 

 unusually late date for southern Indiana. The ope.ning of the 

 shooting season, September 1, 1889, several Shovellers were killed at 

 Water Valley. The}' came to the deco} r s, and their weight attracted 

 so much attention that several were weighed and found as heavy as two 

 pounds each. Those who have handled spoonbills in the spring will 

 appreciate the weight given, as they are then usually merely a bunch of 

 feathers. They return from the north through September and, more 

 numerously, in October. In the latter month most of them pass on 

 southward. Rarely may one remain till the middle of November. 



17. GKNUS DAFILA STKPHKNS. 

 a 1 . Speculum violet, with black, white, and buffy. D. acuta Linn. 36 



36. (143.) Dafila acuta LINN. 



Pintail. 

 Synonym, SPRIGTAIL. 



Adult Male. Tail cuneate, when fully developed the central feath- 

 rs projecting and nearly equaling the wing; bill, black and blue; feet, 

 grayish-blue; head and upper neck, dark brown, with green and pur- 

 ple gloss; sides of neck, with a long white stripe; lower neck and 

 under parts, white; dorsal line of neck, black, passing into the 

 gray of the back, which like the sides, is vermiculated with black; 

 speculum, greenish-purple anteriorly bordered by buff tips of the 

 greater coverts, elsewhere by black and white; tertials and scapulars, 

 black and silvery. Adult Female. Tail much shorter and not so nar- 

 row; the whole head and neck speckled or finely streaked with dark 

 brown and grayish or yellowish-brown; below, dusky freckled; 

 above, blackish; all the feathers pale-edged; only a trace of the specu- 

 lum between the white or whitish tips of the greater coverts and sec- 

 ondaries. 



Length, about 26.00-30.00; wing, 10.25-11.20; middle tail feathers, 

 7.25-9.50; bill, 1.85-2.15; tarsus, 1.55-1.85. Female smaller. 



RANGE. Northern Hemisphere. In North America it breeds from 

 north Illinois and Wisconsin northward to Arctic regions, but mostly 

 far north. Winters from southern Illinois south to Cuba and Panama. 



Nest, on the ground or in tuft of grass. Eggs, 6-12; buff or grayish- 

 green; 2.21 by 1.47. 



Abundant migrant in spring; not common migrant in fall. Per- 

 haps occasionally winters. The winter of 1884-5 a few ducks of this 

 species spent most of that season at Shawneetown, 111. This is but a 



