178 



DESCRIPTIONS OF WILD HYBRIDS OF AUSTRALIAN DUCKS 

 CONTAINED IN THE S.A. MUSEUM COLLECTION. 



By F. R. Zietz, Ornithologist of the South Australian 

 Museum. 



[Read October 10, 1912.] 



Plate IX. 



The following are descriptions of six interesting speci- 

 mens of ducks which are, without doubt, hybrids bred in the 

 wild state ; they were shot, associated with other wild ducks, 

 on Lakes Alexandrina and Albert, of the lower Murray. 

 Specimens referred to as A, B, C, and D show characters of 

 both Anas superciliosa, Grm., and Nettion gibberifrons, S. 

 Mull. ; specimen E, those of the former and Spatula rhyn- 

 chotis, Lath., female; and specimen F, those of Nettion 

 gibberifrons and Spatula rhynchotis, female, 



A. — General plumage above dark-brown, the feathers 

 broadly margined with greyish and rufous buff ; upper part 

 of the head and a band from the forehead through the eyes 

 to the occiput brown-black, each feather narrowly edged with 

 buff; superciliary stripe, cheeks and sides of neck buffy-white 

 minutely streaked with brown; a band of buff feathers 

 streaked with brown runs from the gape to the ear-coverts ; 

 chin and throat white immaculate ; feathers of the breast 

 with a blackish-brown crescentic band broadly edged with 

 fulvous, those in the centre of the breast tipped with white, 

 forming a silvery- white patch ; feathers of the abdomen brown 

 broadly edged with buff; sides of body and upper and under 

 tail-coverts darker ; wings brown, speculum on secondaries 

 metallic-green, bordered anteriorly by a black band with a 

 narrow buffy-white edging at the tips of the greater wing- 

 coverts, and similarly posteriorly by another but broader 

 black band with a broader white edging at the tips of the 

 secondaries; wing-coverts dark greyish-brown with an olive 

 lustre and light edges ; the greater row brown with a sub- 

 terminal black band and tipped with buffy-white : the 

 greater under wing-coverts grey on the outer webs and nearly 

 the whole of their inner webs white ; the lesser ones white 

 with a brown spot at the base ; axillaries white ; upper and 

 lower mandibles bluish-black, nail black; legs and feet 

 plumbeous with a yellowish tint, claws black. Wing, 9 ; 

 tail, 4; culmen, 17; tarsus, 15; sex, (?). Locality: Lake 

 Albert, South Australia, February 12, 1910. Plate ix., fig. 4. 



