430 PINTAIL. 
to lat. 50°; while Messrs. Eagle Clarke and Laidlaw found pairs, 
apparently nesting, in the Rhone delta. During the cold season it 
is found over the rest of the Continent, as well as in Northern 
Africa, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Indian region as far south as Borneo, 
China and Japan ; its summer-range northward in Asia extending up 
to lat. 72° on the Yenesei (Popham). In America also it has been met 
with up to 72° N. lat. in Alaska, and thence eastward to Labrador ; 
its winter migrations reaching to the West Indies and Panama. 
The nest—generally placed among coarse herbage in a dry 
situation, and often at a little distance from water—is deep and well 
lined with down; the eggs, 7-10 in number, being pale buffish- 
green in colour and rather elongated in form: measurements 2°1 by 
1°5 in. Incubation commences in May or June, according to the 
locality. In winter this species resorts to salt-water estuaries ; or to 
large open sheets of fresh-water, in the shallow portions of which it 
finds succulent plants (and wild rice abroad), as well as insects 
and their larve, and small molluscs; its flesh is therefore excel- 
lent in flavour. It feeds with its head below the water, its long 
tail being then raised in the air, and it is notoriously partial to the 
company of Wigeon. By day it is rather a silent bird, but it utters 
a low-toned quack at night, and in the pairing-time a short double 
whistle. In confinement it breeds freely, and has been known to 
pair with the Wigeon ; an interesting case is also on record of a male 
Pintail and a Common Duck producing young half-breeds which 
had offspring again by the father, while the three-quarter birds bred 
again with the pure species. Its frequent hybridization with the 
_ Mallard in a wild state has already been mentioned ; the half-bred 
drake being a remarkably handsome bird. 
The adult male in spring has the head brown, shading into 
greenish-black on the nape; upper neck bronze, with a white stripe 
down the neck on each side and meeting the white breast and belly; 
back and flanks mottled grey; greater wing-coverts buff, followed 
by a dronze-green wing-spot margined with black and white; 
tail black, the two central feathers much elongated ; under tail- 
coverts black ; bill, legs and feet chiefly slate-grey. In July a 
plumage like that of the female is assumed, and is retained until 
October, but the bronze-green wing-spot is always present. Whole 
length 26-29 in. (the central tail-feathers being sometimes 8°5 in.) ; wing 
11rin. The female is mottled-brown above and greyish-white below; 
the long slender neck, greenish-bronze wing-spot, and the oblique 
buffish bars on the brown tail-feathers sufficing to distinguish her from 
any other species. The young are like her in their first plumage. 
