308 
ANAS ACUTA 
barred with white or buff color. Back and rump mottled gray and brown; tail brown. Lower parts 
mostly white with more or less indication of brownish bars and spots. Wing without a metallic 
speculum, but with an anterior and a posterior white wing-bar. Primaries dark brown. Under wing- 
coverts mottled. Axillars more or less barred with brown and darker than in male. 
Iris dark brown. Bill bluish horn-color. Legs and feet greenish gray. 
Wing 242-266 mm.; bill 45-50; tarsus 39-42. 
Weight 1 pound 2 oimces to 1 pound 14 ounces (0.51 to 0.85 kilograms). 
Young Female in First (Juvenal) Plumage: Very similar to adult female, but much more 
streaked with gray on the whole lower surface. 
Young Male in First Plumage: Like the young female, but the mantle is usually more conspicu- 
ously barred, and as soon as the wing feathers appear, the brilliant speculum of the male serves to 
distinguish it from the female. In September or October a few obscurely vermiculated feathers begin 
to appear on mantle, scapulars, or flanks. 
Male in Eclipse : Darker and grayer than adult female, especially on the occiput, lower scapulars 
and tertials. The mantle and scapulars are more or less finely vermiculated with gray, the chin and 
throat are more spotted, and the lower side is somewhat streaky. The metallic speculum is always 
present unless the flight feathers have just been dropped. The eclipse male in this species is therefore 
a good deal less like the female than in many other ducks. 
Young in July, before flight feathers are grown : Somewhat like the Mallard at a corresponding age, 
but there is no dark streak through the eye, and the top of the head is browmer and less black. 
Young in Down : Grayer and less yellowish on the lower side than the Mallard, with the eye-streak 
less defined, and with a brown area on the cheeks merging with the dark ocular patch. White body- 
spots as in the Mallard. 
DISTRIBUTION 
The Pintail is one of the most widely distributed of all the ducks, being found throughout Europe 
and Asia, in parts of Africa, and in the greater part of North America. 
Breeding Area 
In America the Pintail breeds throughout a very extensive range, but as in the Old World, less 
commonly south of 55°. To start with Alaska: Nelson (1887), w'ho recorded it for the extreme 
America eastern Arctic coast of Siberia, found it also on St. LawTence Island in Bering Strait, 
and speaks of it as very abundant on the Alaskan shore of the Bering Sea, extending 
rarely to Point Barrow. F. S. Hersey (1916) did not see it north of Cape Espenberg, but C. H. Town- 
send (1887) and J. Grinnell (1900) record it as common in Kotzebue Sound, while Murdoch (1885) 
found it breeding near Point Barrow. Nelson (1887) found it on the Alaskan coast south to the mouth 
of the Kuskoquim, and has no doubt that it breeds on the Aleutians. There is no evidence of its 
breeding or occurring in this archipelago, however, except that L. M. Turner (1886) says it is found 
sparingly on Unalaska in November, but not later. Recently specimens have been taken on 
St. Paul Island in the Pribilovs, in May (Evermann, 1913). At the base of the Alaska Peninsula 
Alaska common (Osgood, 1904), but it breeds in Glacier Bay on the south coast 
(Sw'arth, 1922) and has been recorded for Kadiak and Sitka by Bischoff {fide Baird, 
Brew'er and Ridgw^ay, 1884). In the interior of Alaska the speeies seems to be abundant throughout 
the Yukon Valley, from the mouth at St. Michael’s (Bishop, 1900; F. S. Ilersey, 1917), upstream 
