EATON’S PINTAIL 
ANAS EATON I (Sharpe) 
(Plate 40) 
Synonymy 
Querquedula Icerguelensis Clarke, Wreck of the ‘Favorite,’ p. 186, 1850 {nomen 
nudum) . 
Querquedula eatoni Sharpe, Ibis, ser. 3, vol. 5, p. 328, 1875. 
Dafila eatoni Salvadori, Cat. Birds British Mus., vol. 27, p. 278, 1895. 
Vernacular Names 
English: Eaton’s Pintail, Kerguelen Pintail. 
German: Eaton’s Spiessente. 
French: Canard pilet d’Eaton 
DESCRIPTION 
Adult Male : Head and upper part of the neck dark brown, the feathers with narrow central darker 
stripes; nape blackish, with pale dottings; interscapular region and back brown, waved with narrow 
whitish bars; scapulars long and acuminate, black, with grayish edges, the outer ones black on the 
apical part outwardly; upper tail-coverts brown edged with whitish, the outer ones black on the 
outer web; under parts dull grayish, with a slight brown tinge on the crop-region which is thickly 
dotted with small blackish spots or streaks, the latter finer on the breast ; sides and flanks regularly 
barred with black and white, the white bars the narrower; crissum black in the middle, grayish 
outwardly; wings grayish brown; speculum bronzy green, but the upper and lower parts velvety 
black bounded anteriorly by a narrow cinnamon band at the tip of the last row of the upper wing- 
coverts, and posteriorly by a sub-apical black band and by an apical white one; tertials gray on the 
outer web, blackish on the inner one, the outer tertial velvety black on the outer web, and with a 
very distinct whitish band along the inner part of the outer web; primaries brown on the outer web 
and at the tip, paler gray on the inner web; imder wing-coverts brown-gray, with pale edges; tail 
brownish gray, the central tail-feathers black, elongated and acuminate; bill blackish, but probably 
in the living bird plumbeous; feet also dark in dried skins (Salvadori, 1895). 
Wing 228 mm.; bill 34; tarsus 34. Out of 100 specimens in the flesh the males averaged: length 
380 mm.; bills 34 (Loranchet, 1916). 
Adult Female: General appearance like female Pintail. Head and lower parts almost exactly the 
same; upper surface in general browner in tone, with more brown and less white on the edges of the 
feathers of the mantle; wing almost the same as in the female Pintail, with speculum dull brown to 
blackish. 
Iris black. Bill green, tipped with black. Legs green, claws black. 
Wing 206 mm.; bill 32; tarsus 30 (U.S. National Museum specimen, 68974). Females average 
350 mm. in length; bills 31 mm. (Loranchet, 1916). 
I.M.MATURE Male: Similar to female, but mantle and scapulars more or less barred with buff; long 
