back. Downward, this rump-mark blends into dusky-olive under-tail-coverts. 

 Tail and rump together picture a patch of dark water, with blended, weak 

 reflections, relieved by a streak or two of reflected shore-color in clearer defini- 

 tion. These streaks, which are shining rufous brown, are formed by the 

 central barbs of two or three of the loose-webbed, lengthened upper-tail-coverts; 

 they relieve against dusky green. 



The ripple-, sand-, and water-shimmer pictures on the Wood Duck's flanks 

 have been described in an earlier part of this chapter, but to complete this 

 elaborate account we must revert to them, describing them in greater detail. 

 The whole extent of the sides and flanks, from the crescent breastmark to 

 the chestnut patches on the sides of the rump, is occupied by a uniform pat- 

 tern of minute black vermiculations or undulatory lines, closely crowded over 

 a ground-color of light brownish yellow. Below, this patch fades into the 

 white of the belly; above, from a point barely in front of its middle backward, 

 it is bordered by the remarkably bold and vivid ripple-pictures already men- 

 tioned, formed by broad, alternate bands of snow and jet. These bands are 

 on the tips of the longest of the grizzled feathers, and, as has been told, they 

 cross them transversely, yet by the curling upward of these feathers the bands 

 are made to form oblique or even horizontal streaks. Rising out of and sur- 

 mounting the grizzled brown — ^which pictures either tremulous, opaque water, 

 or, more vividly, a submerged bed of sand — these richly contrasted black 

 and white streaks and crescents look wonderfully like a crowded company 

 of fresh-made, hurrying ripples; just such, in fact, as the swimming bird him- 

 self produces. Thus the ripple-marks he leaves in his wake and those that 

 roll out from his further side are continued and repeated on his obliteratively- 

 colored body, and this gives the final touch of perfection to his 'vanishment.' 

 In the marvelous completeness of this 'vanishment,' this 'invisibility' in full 

 and near view on quiet water, he is possibly unique among swimming birds. 

 One may scan a Wood-Duck-haunted pool for many minutes, at close range, 

 and fail to see the ducks that are floating on it; just as one often looks in vain 

 for the Ruffed Grouse that is perching motionless in the apple tree. Like 



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