on Eclipse Plumage and Flightlessness. 261


difference between males and fine females (some specimens of

the latter sex are much duller than others) except for a rusty

patch on the lores; and in eclipse plumage the male acquires

this, the only change he can make !


As far as I have been able to observe Australian and South.

American Anatidce have no eclipse plumage, whether there is a

well-marked sexual difference, as in the above-mentioned Rosy-

billed Pochard and in the Maned Goose (Chenonetta jubata ) of

Australia, or whether both sexes bear a handsome quasi-male

plumage, such as the Chilian Wigeon (.Mareca chiloensis ) or the

Grey Teal {Querqiiediila veisicolor). The latter case is obviously

like that of the Sheldrakes, which everywhere and always display

a striking plumage. These, being powerful intelligent birds,,

probably need protection less than the other ducks, and it is to be

noted, with regard to the South-American and Australian Water-

fowl, that they inhabit a region where the survival of numerous

primitive types is supposed to show that the struggle for life is

less keen. This would of course, be an argument in favour of

the eclipse plumage as a protective one. Whatever its use may

be, there is some foundation for Mr. Bonhote’s idea that it is a

weak phase, in so far as it is a reversion to a more primitive

colour.


Some birds in captivity will thus go into an abnormal

eclipse, losing the distinctive male coloration to a great extent—

a phenomenon very familiar in such finches as the Linnet, which

loses its carmine colouring and thus tends to resemble the female

and young of its species, whose plumage is presumably more

primitive. I have even known such a change to be temporary

in the Calcutta Zoological Gardens some years ago two White

Pelicans, received from Europe in full colour, reverted to the

brownish immature plumage for a time, and then resumed their

adult rose-white hue. And in the London Gardens last year a

Scoresby’s Gull (.Leucophaezis scoresbii ) which had lost the hood

(a sign of immaturity in this species) put it on for a time in the

autumn, only to lose it again.


There seems to be an impression abroad that all the

Anatidce lose their quills and become flightless when moulting.

But there is at least one remarkable exception, the curious Pied



