318 FEATHERED GAME 
thirty-six inches. Iris brown. Feet bluish 
gray with dusky webs. Bill blackish. During 
the moulting season he puts on a dress like the 
female’s but darker and still showing the cop: 
pery speculum. 
The female is smaller and less showily 
dressed; principally dull yellowish brown for a 
body color, this mottled with dark brown and 
dusky, the dark colors on the centres of the 
feathers. Speculum of duller tones, and but 
little different from other feathering of the 
wing, perhaps from its less attractive setting. 
She lacks the lengthened feathers of the tail but 
may be known at once by her slender neck and 
race-horse lines. In his first season the young 
drake, as the country people say, ‘‘takes after 
his mother,’’ and aside from his lustrous specu- 
lum is hard to distinguish from her. 
THE WOOD DUCK. BRIDAL DUCK. 
SUMMER DUCK. 
(Aix sponsa.) 
Among the waterfowl of all America the lit- 
tle Wood Duck may claim the precedence of 
grace and beauty. Few birds indeed may equal 
