markings, and by iridescence, which must often admirably mask them under 

 water also. 



The foregoing sketch of ducks' disguising coloration touches on most 

 of the main general facts. But the reader must liow be subjected to a de- 

 tailed description of the obliterative equipment of one particular species, the 

 Wood Duck, the male of which is almost unsurpassed among birds in the 

 combined boldness and intense subtlety of its disguising coloration. (See 

 Plates III and IV.) The general scheme of this beautiful bird's 'disguise- 

 ment' includes a full and potent obliterative shading, from blue-black on 

 the back and tail to pure white on the entire underside, shading through 

 sand-color on the flanks and through chestnut, mixed with white, on the 

 breast. The throat also is white, ending abruptly against deep velvet bronze 

 and purple on the cheeks. Founded on this, underlying obliterative shading, 

 which cancels the bird's visible solidity, and prepares him for 'background 

 matching,' there is a bright and beautiful system of water-pictures, of many 

 kinds, bolder and more vivid than those of any other bird we know (with the 

 possible exception of Steller's Eider). For the most part, these pictures are 

 of shore- and sky-reflections, subtilely and richly intermingled, and comprising 

 a great variety of effects. The colors are mainly deep and soft, though rich, 

 and liquidly alive with sober iridescence. Their range (excluding the sandy 

 flanks) is from chestnut red glossed over with purple, through all degrees of 

 blue to golden green; — ^perfect woodland water colors, all of them. Olive- 

 ash color occurs on the lesser wing-coverts and primary quills, and this, the 

 tint of lusterless still water near the shore, between reflections, is a connecting 

 link between the brighter water-pictures and the sand-colored sides. The 

 scapulars, which meet over the back, are somber blackish, with a glimmering 

 of blue; water deeply shaded, showing a dark bottom, or reflecting something 

 dusky. The "speculum" and some of the greater wing-coverts, together 

 forming a patch which intervenes between the back and flanks, and, longi- 

 tudinally, between the two areas of ashy olive, are bright and lustrous blue, 

 ranging from almost purple to deep robin's-egg, and including also, on a single 



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