GADWALL DUCK. 213 



the upper part of the neck all round, light yel- 

 lowish-red tinged with gray, and marked with 

 small, longitudinal, dusky streaks, which are faint- 

 er on the throat, that part being grayish-white. 

 The rest of the neck, the sides, all the upper 

 parts, and the lower rump feathers, brownish- 

 black, broadly margined with yellowish-red. Wing- 

 coverts brownish-gray, edged with paler; the 

 wing otherwise as in 'the male, but the specu- 

 lum fainter. Tail feathers and their coverts dusky, 

 laterally obliquely indented with pale brownish- 

 red and margined with reddish-white. 



Length to end of tail, 19^- inches ; extent of 

 wings, 31. 



The habits of this bird seem to have been 

 rather imperfectly understood by several of our 

 best authorities on sporting and natural history ; 

 Forrester asserting it to be " a solitary bird, 

 rarely congregating in large bodies," while Wilson 

 describes it as being " a very quick diver, so 

 much so as to make it difficult to be shot." Both 

 these authors state their knowledge of this species to 

 be very limited, so I consider their remarks to be the 

 result of information received from others less care- 

 ful in their observations or not sufficiently fami- 

 liar with its ways. I can readily conceive how 



