water-picture it renders a duller sky reflection, mixed perhaps with under- 

 water effect. 



The deep chestnut breast is blended above into dusky olive, on the fore- 

 back and neck, while below it fades away into the immaculate white belly, 

 the transition being effected by a series of triangular white flecks, extending 

 downward in crescendo progression from the upper breast. (See, in con- 

 nection with this and other points in my description. Plates III and IV.) This 

 rich and lustrous chestnut, fleckless in its anterior and upper third, and glossed 

 with purple and weak green, is an admirable picture of translucent, shaded 

 water near the shore, either reflecting faintly the muddy bank and brown- 

 stemmed bushes, or dimly revealing its owii dusky, earth-colored bottom. 

 Bounding the back edge of this chestnut, and separating it from the wing 

 and side, is a bold 'secant' band of black and white (like that worn by certain 

 teals, but stronger), vertically. extended, but slightly crescentic, and pointing 

 forward. Sharply 'secant' — seeming fairly to cut the bird in halves — this 

 marking is also intermediate in character between the reflection-picturing 

 patterns of the head and the ripple-pictures on the flanks. For it depicts 

 with almost equal fidelity at least two types of detail — a, narrow sky vista 

 reflected side by side with a dark stem or tree trunk, and a sky reflection 

 glancing from the side of a sharp, single ripple. At least two evident purposes 

 are likewise served by the beautifully graduated white triangles on the chest- 

 nut breast, downward growing larger and larger until they completely veil 

 the brown and blend it into the white of the belly. First, they are agents in 

 the obliterative shading, and second, they admirably picture small glints of 

 bright reflection on the faintly tremulous surface of quiet, shaded water. In 

 this function they are the same as the punctate shine-pictures on the backs of 

 rails, wood sandpipers, loons, etc., mentioned earlier in this chapter. 



Chestnut like that of the breast, but more strongly glossed with purple, 

 forms a broad patch on either side of the Wood Duck's rump, back of the 

 ripple-picturing flank feathers. It is unflecked, and blends into the dusky 

 and velvety-blue-green tail, just as the breast's chestnut blends into the olive 



68 



