20 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XifT. 
This bird has, in addition to the remarkable tail, another feature 
almost equally remarkable, viz., the swollen base to the bill which 
extends forward as far as the nostrils. The nail is also very 
small and is bent inwards ; the wing very small, and the feet very 
large and powerful with the lobe to the hind toe very fully de- 
veloped. 
(37.) ERIsMATURA LEUCOCEPHALA. 
The White-headed or Stiff-tailed Duck. 
Erismatura leucocephala.—Hume and Marshall, Game Birds, III, 
p- 289 ; Hume, “ Str. Feath.,”’ VIII, p. 456 ; IX, p. 290 ; X, p. 158 ; 
Salvadori, Cat. “ Birds of British Museum,” XXVII, p. 442 ; F. Finn, 
P. A.S. B., 1896, p. 62; Sherwood, Journal, Bom. N. H. Soc., XI, 
p. 150; Blanford, “Avifauna of British India,” IV, p. 466; Oates, 
“ Game Birds,” II, p. 374. 
Description: Adult Male.—“ Crown black ; forehead, sides of the head 
including the space above the eye, chin and nape pure white ; below 
this white the neck all round is black ; lower neck and breast chestnut- 
red, with narrow blackish bars ; back, scapulars, sides and flanks reddish- 
chestnut, more or less buffish and finely and irregularly vermiculated 
with blackish ; upper tail coverts deep chestnut; under parts, below 
the breast, reddish-butfy-white ; wings brown-grey, the wing coverts 
and secondaries finely vermiculated with buffy-white; under wing 
coverts grey, the central ones whitish ; axillaries white ; tail blackish ; 
bill blue; iris dark brown; feet ashy brown, with the webs black. 
Total length about 18°5 inches ; wings 6°5 ; tail 4°50; culmen 1°9; 
tarsus 1°3,” (Salvadori.) 
— “Tength about 18" ; tail 3°5" (8! to 4:5") ; wings 6°3" ; tarsus 1” ; bill 
from gape 19".” (Blanford.) 
Females and young males “have only the chin, lower cheeks, 
and a stripe from above the gape, running back from under the eye 
towards the nape, white, rest of the head black mixed with rufous; 
the upper tail coverts are like the rest of the upper parts, and the 
breast is dull rufous without black bars; otherwise the plumage 
resembles that of adult males. Some specimens are much more 
rufous than others.”’ (Blanford.) 
“Bill dull plumbeous; iris dark brown; legs plumbeous black. ” 
(Salvadori.) 
