The Wood Duck 



primaries silvery white, on outer web tipped with metallic blue; secondaries white- 

 tipped, the exposed webs metallic; crissum sooty-brown with metallic gloss; flank- 

 patches intense purplish chestnut; axillars and lining of wings white, spotted or 

 barred with dusky. "Bill (in life) beautifully varied with jet-black, milk-white, lilac, 

 red, orange, and yellow; legs and feet orange, claws black; iris and edges of eye-lid 

 red." Adult female and young: Crest only faintly indicated; top of head purplish 

 brown with faint metallic reflections; throat and space about eye (extending back- 

 ward to occiput) and some feathering about base of bill, white; rest of head ashy- 

 brown; upperparts much as in male but duller, chiefly- warm brown in place of black 

 fore-neck and breast brown, streaked with lighter or dull ochraceous; belly white 

 crissum mixed fuscous and white. Length, adult male: 482.6-520.7 (19.00-20.50) 

 wing 232.4 (9.15); tail 98.6 (3.88); bill 33 (1.30); tarsus 34.5 (1.36). Female, 

 length: 431.8-489 (17.00-19.25) ; other dimensions in proportion. 



Recognition Marks. — Smaller than Mallard; exquisitely variegated plumage of 

 male unmistakable; female unlike that of any other species. 



Nesting. — Nest: In a hollow tree, lined with twigs, grasses, and down. Down: 

 Yellowish gray. Eggs: 8 to 14; dull yellowish or pale olive-gray. Av. size 52.1 x 40 

 (2.05 x 1.58). Season: April 20-May; one brood. 



General Range. — Temperate North America. Breeds from the southern tier 

 of Canadian provinces south to California, Texas, Florida, and Cuba. Resident on 

 the Pacific Coast; and wintering chiefly in the southern half of its eastern range. Cas- 

 ual in Bermuda, Jamaica, Mexico, and Europe. 



Distribution in California. — Rare resident locally throughout the State, but 

 chiefly northerly and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley. Numbers slightly aug- 

 mented by fall migratory movement. Formerly abundant but now verging upon 

 extinction. 



Authorities. — Newberry, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. vi., 1857, p. 102 (Calif.); 

 Willett, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 7, 1912, p. 24 (status in s. Calif.); Grinnell and Bryant. 

 Calif. Fish and Game, vol. i., 1915, p. 49 (status in Calif.). 



BEYOND controversy, the Wood Duck of America is one of the 

 most exquisitely beautiful of living creatures. Among the Ducks them- 

 selves only one species, the Mandarin (Aix galericulata) , of China, ap- 

 proaches it in elegance; and this is not so strange, since the Mandarin 

 is a kinsman, or, in scientific parlance, a "congener," of our bird. Linnaeus 

 called the Wood Duck "the Bride" (Latin, sponsa, bride); but of course 

 it is the bridegroom who wears the jewels, and inherits the products of 

 Oriental looms and dye-stuffs, bequeathed through a thousand genera- 

 tions, for males must strut and females must work, is the rule among ducks 

 as among most other groups of birds. Literally all the colors of the rain- 

 bow belong to this bird in his nuptial plumage — with black and white 

 thrown in for good measure. The Wood Duck is our one vision of trop- 

 ical splendor, a thing too beautiful and, as the event has proved, too con- 

 fiding to entrust to our vandal generation. 



The Wood Duck is notable not alone for the gaudiness of its attire. 

 In action it is graceful and agile and pleasing. Birds of this species 



1797 



