42 INDIAN DUCKS. 



it is owing to age, very old birds being the darkest, nearly bkck. Condition of 

 plumage in this, as in every other species of brown or black bird, has a good deal 

 to do with the colour, and brown in old plumage is always much duller and paler 

 than in the fresh. I have certain Spine-tail Swifts which show a mixture of 

 quite light brown feathers with new black ones glossed with blue, the former 

 being merely old ones from which the colouring-matter has become exhausted. 



" Bill reddish white, rosy at the base and bluish at the tip ; irides fine 

 orange-red ; legs and feet blackish, with a tinge of red."' (Jerdon.) 



"Bill dirty red; cere flesh-coloured ; irides deep orange-red ; legs and feet 

 reddish-slate " (Sfilllivrfford). Of another he notes :— " ]jill light pink, assuming 

 a purplish tint towards gonys ; cere flesh-coloured ; irides deep orange ; tarsus, 

 web, and nails dark slate, inclining to purple ; lower mandible more deeply 

 coloured than upper.'" 



The folloM ing note of my own may explain Shillingford's " cere." Bill dull 

 reddish-pink, deeper on mandible and darker still on gonys, the base of both 

 mandibles, more especially the maxilla near the forehead, purer and brighter pink. 

 This note was talcen f'roiii an adidt male. Inglis describes the soft parts from a 

 live bird in his possession : " Bill light pink, pinker at tip on nail ; base of maxilla 

 and whole lower mandible flesh-coloured, the colour being on some skins h" 

 broad (the cere) at the base of the maxilla; edge of nostrils black; iris light 

 red ; legs and feet reddish-black ; rim round eyelids flesh-coloured." 



"Length about 24 inches, wing 10"5, tail 4-25, culmen 2'1, tarsus l-f!." 

 {Salvadori.) 



Female. — " Similar to the male, but duller and paler, and more of a smoky 

 brown ; the pink of the head is dingier and paler, and there is a broad brown 

 medial band from forehead over crown and occiput, and (diminishing rapidly in 

 width) on the back of the upper neck; but the most conspicuous difference is 

 that the dull pink of the face runs on, unbroken, over the entire chin and throat, 

 so that there is no trace of the dark band along chin and throat so con- 

 spicuous in the male." (Salvadon.) 



The colours of the soft parts in the female seem to differ in being all of a 

 duller hue. There is only one sexed skin in the British Museum (which possesses 

 only six adult skins altogether), and this a female. The only colours given, 

 however, in the catalogue are those quoted from Shillingford. 1 do not know 

 the authority from which these are taken, and Shillingford himself does not seem 

 to have sexed his specimens. 



Gates says that of the birds he has examined he has found the females to be 

 about equal to the males in size. Gates gives the wing as 11 inches. The only 

 other record of female measurements is in the Appendix to ' Game-Birds,' where 

 a female is said to be 23 inches long Avith a wing of lO*") and an expanse of 

 37 inches ; strange to say, also, she weighed more than three out of the four males 

 that are mentioned in the same place. 



Young. — "Head and neck pale rose-whitish colour, with the top of the head, 

 nape, and hind-neck brown ; the whole plumage lighter brown ; the luiderparts 

 pale dull brown, with the edges of the feathers whitish." (Sahadori.) 



I do not understand the young bird depicted in the plate in ' Game-Birds,' 

 and have never heard of any like it in plumage, the "rose-whitish " colour being 

 alwavs a distinct feature. 



