262 ANIMALS IN MENAGERIES. 



it ranks next in excellence to the canvas-back duck 

 about to be described, and which it much resembles in 

 plumage. 



The colour of the male, on the head and neck, is 

 rich chestnut : the lower part of the throat, breast, and 

 upper part of the back are black, marked with fine un- 

 dulated lines of grey : the back and scapulars are marked, 

 in the same manner, with cinereous and dusky lines ; 

 smaller wing covers the same, but darker ; greater covers 

 and secondary quills blue grey ; primaries cinereous 

 grey : rump and under tail covers black : under parts 

 of the body dusky white, faintly undulated with zigzag 

 dusky hues, which are blackish at the vent : tail feathers 

 fourteen, and coloured like the wings : bill and feet 

 bluish grey ; the tip and base of the former being 

 black. 



The female differs in having the head and neck fer- 

 ruginous brown ; the breast and belly dusky white, 

 clouded with brown ; and the under tail feathers dusky 

 and white : in other respects, as Montagu says, it is like 

 the male, but the markings are all less distinct. 



Mr. Selby does not notice the female, but he describes, 

 in the following words, what he considers a variety, 

 killed upon the Northumberland coast, and now in his 

 collection. — "^ Head and neck bright reddish orange, 

 passing into reddish white upon the crown : breast very 

 pale broccoli brown *, with a silky lustre : all the rest of 



* Two or three of our best ornithologists, from a laudable desire of intro- 

 ducing a distinct and peculiar nomenclature of colours, have adopted 

 certain terms like this, which, to those who are unacquainted with the 

 standard they refer to, are generally very perplexing, and often unintelli- 

 gible. With every deference to the opinion of my friends upon this subject, 

 I must confess my very strong objections to all such terms as are not in 

 general use, unless they are sufficiently and distinctly explained in a 

 separate page of the work in which they are used. It is quite out of the 

 question to suppose that anyone nomenclature of colours, differing from 

 that which is in general use, should ever become universal ; or that people 

 will purchase a separate treatise upon that subject, in order that they may 

 understand the terms used in another book. Even were all the colours of 

 one tint, or, to speak more correctly, of one depth, the attempt at affixing 

 names to every shade would be utterly hopeless : how much more so then 

 is it, when every tint is capable of assuming an infinity of others, for which, 

 if the principle is to be followed up, separate names should be assigned I 

 I found this opinion upon experience; and upon repeated ! attempts to 

 describe the colour of birds in such a way as to convey the highest degree 



