440 AMERICAN WIGEON. 
Common Wigeon at a Leeds game-stall, and its portrait appears in 
the late Lord Lilford’s ‘Coloured Figures of British Birds.’ 
In France, according to MM. Marmottan and Vian, a female, 
now in the collection of the former, was taken at Le Crotoy, Somme, 
on April 13th 1875; and Mr. O. H. Howarth has informed me 
of a specimen in a collection at St. Michael, Azores. Dr. L. 
Stejneger has stated that a very lean and moulting female was found 
dead on Bering Island on May 1st 1883. 
In North America this Wigeon is found in summer from Alaska 
eastward throughout the Fur-countries to Hudson Bay; and on 
migration it occurs over the greater part of that continent, being 
numerous on the Chesapeake, where, like the Canvas-back, it feeds 
on the Vadlisnerta. Audubon says that it is abundant during winter 
at New Orleans, where it is much esteemed on account of the juici- 
ness of its flesh, and is best known by the name of “Zinzin.” In 
the West and in most parts of the Eastern and Middle States 
it is called “the Bald Pate.” It frequents the rice-fields of the 
South, wanders to the Bermudas, and is an annual winter-visitor to 
Mexico, the West India Islands and Central America. 
The nest of this species is stated by Kennicott to be always on 
high dry ground, among trees or bushes, at a considerable distance 
from water ; it is a comparatively small depression among the dead 
leaves, lined with down, and contains from 7-10 ivory-white eggs, 
measuring 2°t by 15 in. The note is a soft, gentle whistle. 
The adult male has the forehead and crown dull white ; a broad 
green streak passing backward from the eye; cheeks and neck 
whitish, freckled with black; mantle brownish-grey vermiculated 
with black ; lesser wing-coverts white, and the greater ones tipped 
with black; on the secondaries a green patch ; tail greyish-brown ; 
upper breast to flanks mottled reddish-brown; belly and vent 
white ; bill black at the tip, the rest greyish-blue; legs and feet 
bluish. In younger males the plumage is duller, and the soft parts 
are darker in colour. Length 19 in.; wing 1ro‘5 in. The female 
has the head and neck yellowish-white speckled with black (decidedly 
whiter than in our Wigeon), very little rufous on the breast, 
and a dark brown back. The young are much like the females in 
the first season, but in the drakes the wing-pattern is better defined 
and the colours are more pronounced. 
