512 



L.UIELLIROSTRAL SWIMMERS — ANSERES. 



Female. 



pluinbeous-bhiL', the ungui, base, and strip along culmen, black ; iris brown ; feet dusky. Adult 

 nude in summer : " Head, neck, and under parts generally as in the adult female, except that the 

 abdomen is didler in color and less marked ; back dull dark brown, each feather having one or two 

 irregular dirty-white bars, and some being irregularly vermiculated with that color ; rump washed 

 with gray ; tail similar in color to that of the bird last described [i.e. adult male in winter], but the 

 two central feathers are but slightly elongated ; wings also as in the last-described stage of plu- 

 mage, but the elongated secondaries and scapulars are shorter and blunter, and in color dark gray, 



black along the centre, some of the latter being 

 marked like the back ; flanks grayish brown, every 

 feather having broad yellowish-white bars ; under 

 tail-coverts as in the female " (Shaepe & Dres- 

 ser). Adult female: Above, plumbeous-dusky, 

 variegated transversely with yellowish white or 

 pale ocliraceons ; these markings sometimes irreg- 

 ularly Ijar-like, but oftener of U-shaped form, one 

 on the edge, and one in the middle portion of each 

 feather. Wing much as in the male, but metallic 

 color of the speculum duller, the ochraceous bar 

 anterior to it paler, and the white terminal bar 

 tinged with buff ; wing-coverts narrowly tipped 

 with whitish. Upper tail-coverts broadly edged 

 with whitish, and more or less marked with 

 irregular — usually V-shaped — lines of the same. 

 Tail-feathers dusky, edged with whitish, and with 

 more or less distinct indications of distant bars 

 of the same. Head and neck dingy whitish, tinged with brown on the superior surface, which is 

 heavily streakeil with blackish, the other portions more finely and thinly streaked, the throat Ijeing 

 nearly immaculate. Rest of the lower parts dingy white, the feathers more grayish beneath the 

 surface ; crissum and flanks streaked with dusky, but abdomen, etc., usually inmiaculate. Young 

 male : Similar to the female, but markings on upper parts more bar-like, and lower parts some- 

 times nearly wholly streaked. Young female (No. 54633, Kadiak, Alaska, Aug. 1, 1868 ; F. 

 BiscHOFp) : Speculum dilute raw-umber, marbled toward base of feathers with dusky. All the 

 feathers of the upper parts conspicuously and broadly bordered with buffy white ; lower parts 

 everywhere densely streaked with dusky. Downy young: Above, grayish raw-umber, with a 

 white stripe along each side of the back, a white .space on the wing, and a white superciliary stripe. 

 Beneath, grayish white, with a very faint yellowish tinge ; an umber-brown stripe behind the eye, 

 and an indistinct space of the same over the ears. 



Male, total length, about 26.00-28.00 inches ; extent, 36.00; wing, 10.25-11.10 ; tail, 7.25-9.50 ; 

 culmen, 1.85-2.15; width of bill, .70-80; tarsus, 1.55-1.85; middle toe, 1.70-2.10. Female, 

 wing, 9.60-10.10; tail, 4.50-5.00; culmen, 1.80-2.10; width of bOl, .65-75; tarsus, 1.65; 

 middle toe, 1.80. 



The range of individual variation of the colors in this species is very slight, consisting of difl'er- 

 ences that are scarcely worthy of mention. European specimens difl'er, however, very appreciably 

 from North American ones in narrower speculum, but not in other respects. Two males measure 

 as follows : Wing, 10.30-11.00 inches; tail (elongated middle feathers), 8.50 ; culmen, 1.85-1.95 ; 

 width of bill, .70-.75 ; tarsus, 1.40-1.60 ; middle toe, 1.85-1.90.1 



The Pin-tail Duck is cosmopolitan, and enjoys a distribution exceeded in extent by 

 few birds of any kind. In jSTorth. America it is found from Greenland and the Arc- 

 tic coast almost to the Isthmus of Panama. Less abundant, wherever found, than 

 the Mallard, its distribution appears to be quite as extensive. In the Old World it 

 is found throughout Europe, in Asia as far south as Ceylon, in Japan, in different 

 portions of China, and in jSTorthern Africa. 



1 Sharpe & Dresser ( " History of the Birds of Europe," Part XIX. ) give the diniPnsions of the European 

 Pin-tail as follows ; "Total length, 2 feet ; euhuen, 2.2 inches ; wing, 11.2 ; tail, 7..T ; tarsus, 1.6." 



