ORNAMENTAL WATERFOWL. 195 
GENUS MARMARONETTA. 
This genus comprises but one species, which is distributed 
throughout Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and Western 
Asia. 
MARBLED DUCK. 
(Marmaronetta angustirostris. Anas marmorata) 
Mr. Dresser states that this bird is found in the extreme 
South of Europe along the Mediterranean shores, and has been 
observed to breed in Spain during the summer season. It has 
been regarded by different ornithologists as a Teal, a Pochard, 
and a Pintail, Gould, in his “ Birds of Europe,” naming it Aas 
angustirostris. In Dresser’s ‘‘ Birds of Europe” it is described 
as feeding on worms, and nesting among herbage and rushes on 
the lakes of Algeria, being also seen in the reedy waters in 
certain parts of India in flocks of many hundreds. 
Large numbers of these birds were kept by the late Lord 
Lilford, some of which eventually found their way to the Duke 
of Bedford’s Collection at Woburn Abbey, where they have bred. 
Colonel Irby communicated to Mr. Dresser some excellent 
notes upon the habits of this bird, to which author I am also 
indebted for the descriptions given below. 
Male.—Entire ground colour creamy-brown, darker on 
back and wings, equally mottled with a darker shade; a dark 
stripe across eye to back of neck; short bushy crest; lower 
breast and abdomen greyish-white ; tail and wings bluish-buff ; 
beak and legs bluish-black ; eye brown. 
Female.—Similar ; but paler, smaller, and with less tuft. 
Young.—In down, dusky above ; pale yellow beneath. 
Egg.—Yellowish-white ; six to eleven in number. May 
—June. Incubation, twenty-five to twenty-seven days. 
