The Gad wall 



but without white; axillars and lining of wings white; underparts like back but lighter. 

 Bill yellowish green; irides brown; feet and legs orange-red, the webs darker. Length 

 about 558.8 (22.00); wing 271.8 (10.70); tail 104.4 (4- 11 ); culmen 53.6 (2.1 1); bill 

 from nostril 41.2 (1.62); tarsus 43.9 (1.73). Females average smaller. 



Recognition Marks. — Size of Mallard or a little smaller. Like female Mal- 

 lard, but much darker, sooty brown or blackish to appearance; no white bars on wing. 



Nesting. — Does not breed in California. Nest: On the ground among reeds 

 or in grass near water, rather carelessly constructed of rushes or dried grass, and lined 

 with feathers and down; occasionally placed in trees. Eggs: 6 to 12; elliptical or 

 short elliptical ovate; white or pale creamy white. Av. size 60 x 43 (2.36 x 1.69). 

 Season: May-June; one brood. 



General Range. — "Eastern North America. Breeds from central Keewatin 

 and northern Ungava south to northern Wisconsin, northern Indiana and southern 

 Maryland; winters from Nova Scotia south to southern Louisiana and Colorado; 

 west in migration to Nebraska and central Kansas" (A. O. U. Check-List, 3rd Ed.). 

 Accidental in California and Jamaica. 



Occurrence in California. — Accidental, one record; adult female taken at 

 Willows, Glenn County, Feb. 1, 191 1. 



Authority. — Grinnell, Condor, vol. xiii., 191 1, p. 138. 



DUCKS ARE highly sociable mortals; hence, it not infrequently 

 befalls that some gay roysterer turns up in the wrong crowd. A Black 

 Duck was shot at Willows, in Glenn County, Feb. 1st, 191 1, and its skin 

 now reposes among the immortal dead at the Museum of Vertebrate 

 Zoology. The species does not normally occur west of the Great Plains, 

 and it is difficult to conceive how this particular example could ever have 

 fallen in with a company of migrants bound for the Golden State. 



No. 346 



Gad wall 



A. O. U. No. 135. Chaulelasmus streperus (Linnaeus). 



Synonym. — Gray Duck. 



Description. — Adult male: Head and upper neck buffy, spotted or streaked 

 with dusky; top of head darker brownish; breast and lower neck all around dusky 

 and white, each feather with five to eight concentric half-rings of alternating colors, 

 presenting a handsomely scaled appearance; sides, back and scapulars similarly varied 

 with dusky and white, buffy, or ochraceous-white, in semi-concentric, zigzag, or fine, 

 wavy lines; the posterior inner scapulars, not thus marked, dull cinnamon-brown, 

 darker centrally and edged with lighter, lanceolate; lower back dusky, becoming 

 velvety black on upper tail-coverts and around on sides of crissum; middle wing- 

 coverts bright chestnut; the lesser dull brownish gray, the greater velvety black; 

 speculum white, rather narrowly, the outer secondaries black and dusky, the bounding 

 tertials plain fuscous; belly white or grayish, obscurely barred posteriorly; under 



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