THE SWIMMERS. 



149 



blackish brown ; the upper wing-covers are bright reddish brown ; secondary quills olive-brown, with 

 green edges, and the quills and tail-feathers greenish black ; the eye is reddish brown, beak black,' 

 with a dark grey stripe near its nail-like tip ; the foot is lead-grey. This species is eighteen inches 

 long and thirty-two inches broad ; the wing measures eight inches and three-quarters, the tail two 

 inches and two-thirds. The female closely resembles her mate. All travellers who have visited South 

 America describe this bird as occurring in amazing multitudes, more especially in the marshy 





the widow duck {Dendrocygna viduata). ONE-FOURTH NATURAL size. 



grounds of the prairies ; and travellers in Africa assert that it is equally abundant in the southern <md 

 western regions of that continent. Upon the Upper Blue Nile we have ourselves several times met 

 with it in extraordinarily large flocks, which, in closely-packed ranks, covered the banks of the 

 river to a great distance, and when they rose into the air had the appearance of a dense cloud. 

 Heuglin states that the males and females of these birds remain constantly separate from each 

 other ; such a statement, however, we can positively contradict, seeing that we have killed individuals 

 of both sexes at a single shot. We are by no means well informed as to the history of these birds, 

 and about their mode of breeding we know little or nothing certainly. The Widow Duck is 



