INDIAN DUCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. 661 



with the outer web glossed green and tipped white, except the one next 

 the innermost one which is all of this colour ; primaries brown, glossed 

 green and with broad edges of silver grey on the outer webs. Axillaries 

 browD, under wing coverts mixed brown and grey. 



" Iris dark brown with a yellowish white outer ring ; bill reddish 

 brown, with the nail blueish flesh colour ; tarsus and toes reddish yellow, 

 membranes blackish." (Schrenk.) 



Wing 8-8" to 9-4" ; tail 4-2" to 4-6" ; bill, culmen I'l" to 1'25", from 

 gape I'S" to 1-45"; tarsus 1-3" to 1-4" ; length about 16" to 18". 



In one specimen in the British Museum the whole chin, and in 

 another, the border of the angle of the chin, is white. 



Adult female. — Head and full crest grey, a narrow line starting above 

 the eye and passing round the front to the back and bordering the 

 crown, white ; sides of the head pale grey, grading into the white of 

 the chin, throat and upper neck ; the face is sometimes broadly white 

 and sometimes wholely grey and at other times, there is a broad or 

 narrow band of white next the bill ; whole remaining upper parts and 

 wing-coverts brown, more or less tinged with grey or olive grey • lower 

 neck, breast, sides and flanks the same colour as the back, each feather 

 with a pale spot near the tip, these being very large on the flanks • 

 remainder of lower parts white ; primaries brown, slightly glossed green 

 and broadly tipped white, two of the inner secondaries forming a deep 

 blue-green speculum, sub-margined black and margined white ; inner- 

 most secondaries the same colour as the back. 



As with other ducks with white underparts, these are often more 

 or less tinged with rusty. 



Wing about 8"; tail about 4"; bill, culmen 1-05" to 1'20", from 

 gape 1'2" to 1-32". tarsus 1-2" to 1-3". 



The male in part-nuptial plumage resembles the female, but this sex, 

 as Gates points ont, " may be separated from males .... by the 

 oblique white stripe which may always be found on the outer web of the 

 first purple feather of the speculum. This stripe is just below the tips 

 of the wing coverts and is always absent in the male." 



The young male in first plumage also resembles the female with the 

 exception just noted ; it is, however, generally rather bigger and often 

 more clearly coloured. 



Amongst the first indications of sex plumage assumed by the young 

 male is the deepening of the plumage of the breast and upper neck. 



