“Tree-Ducks” of the genus Dendrocygna. 7 
the Tree-Ducks of the genus in question. And this is, in my opinion, 
quite outweighed by the many duck-like habits and the general 
external characters of these birds. 
Some of the skins of Dendrocygna, belonging to the collections 
of the U. S. National Museum, which I have examined, present 
interesting characters worthy of record. For example, in the list 
given above, the D. bicolor (No. 120308) taken at New Madrid, 
Missouri, in the autumn of 1890, is the only bird of this species I 
have ever examined at all resembling it. The sex is not stated on 
the labels — which is unfortunate — notwithstanding the fact that 
the sexes are alike in the adults. 
This is evidently a subadult bird in fall plumage; in it the 
crown is much darker than in the adult, — it being rather an earth- 
brown than a dark yellowish cinnamon. The under parts and sides 
of the head, instead of being a “pale cinnamon or yellowish brown”, 
are of a dull, rather pale brownish clay color. The blackish brown 
of the back and wings is not as deep as it is in the adult, and the 
emarginations of the feathers on the former are very much less pro- 
nounced, and are of a decidedly duller shade. The feet are lighter 
colored, as is likewise the lower mandible and to some extent the 
upper. This particular plumage of D. bicolor I have never seen 
described in any ornithology I have ever read, and it has not the 
appearance of being a hybrid. The markings on the throat in the 
‚case of Dendrocygna viduata exhibit certain variations. It will be 
observed that in the male here figured in Plate 1 (Fig. 1), the mark 
is not a large white “chevron” with the angle pointing forward. 
In a specimen collected by W. H. Hupsox at Bueno Aires — a female — 
(53077), the white “chevron” is replaced by an oblong white patch 
of some considerable size, and this area is connected with the white 
of the head by a longitudinal median line of white; while in a 
‚specimen of this species collected in Madagascar (A. Boucarp, 1875, 
No. 148147), the white patch is absent, there appearing in its place 
a median longitudinal stripe of mixed black and white feathers. The 
sex of this example is not recorded. 
Another male (55905) has a big, white, square patch with no 
connecting line with the white of the head; while still another 
specimen, wherein no sex, collector or locality is given on the label, 
the patch is connected by a broad isthmus of white with that of 
the head, quite one-third as broad as the patch itself. 
On another specimen, a “cage bird”, presented by HomEr DAvEN- 
