132 ANSBBES CASAECA 



coverts, edge of the wing, under wing-coverts (except the greater 

 series, which are ashy-black) and axillaries pure white. 



Iris pale yellow ; bill and legs black. 



Length about 26 ; wing 15 ; tail 5-0 ; culmen 2-0 ; tarsus 2-4. 



The female is smaller than the male and has the front of the 

 face white, including the forehead, patch round the eye and chin ; 

 wing 13 ; culmen 1-75 ; tarsus 1'90. 



Fig. 40. — Head of Casarca cana, g . x l 



Distribution. — This Shelduck has a very restricted range and 

 seems to be most common on the high plateau of the Colony and 

 about the Orange Eiver. It has been met with hitherto only 

 in Cape Colony, the Orange Eiver Colony and the Transvaal, and 

 appears to be absent from Natal, Ehodesia and German South-west 

 Africa. 



The following are recorded localities : Cape Colony — Cape flats, 

 Berg Eiver and Beaufort West (S. A. Mus.), Deelfontein 

 (Seimund) ; Orange Eiver Colony— Kroonstad, March, not plentiful 

 (Symonds), Basutoland fairly common (Murray) ; Transvaal — 

 Potchefstroom, July (Ayres). 



Habits. — The Berg-eend is generally considered rather a scarce 

 bird, but Messrs. Grant and Seimund found it very common all the 

 year round at Deelfontein in the centre of the Karoo ; it is generally 

 met with in pairs, but it is not unusual to see half a dozen together 

 on a dam, feeding or resting; it is frequently caught when young 

 and domesticated by the farmers in South Africa, and it bears 

 captivity very well ; it also hybridises freely with other species. 

 A female, formerly in the Zoological Gardens of London, bred first 

 of all with a Buddy Shelduck, afterwards with one of her own 

 hybrid offspring, and finally with a common Shelduck [Tadorna 



