The Fulvous Tree Duck 



General Range. — Discontinuous. Found in four widely separated regions: 

 One, — southwestern United States and Mexico. Breeds very locally from central 

 California and middle western Nevada, southern Mexico, and central Texas to Valley 

 of Mexico and Michoacan; winters south to southern Mexico, or casually throughout 

 its range: has wandered north to coast of Washington and British Columbia. Two, — 

 South America, Chile, Argentina, southern Brazil, and Paraguay. Three, — Africa, 

 from Kordofan and the valley of the Nile south to Nyasaland, Lake Ngami, and Mada- 

 gascar. Four, — India south of the Himalayas, Burma, and Ceylon. 



Distribution in California. — Common summer resident and breeder in the 

 flooded areas surrounding Los Banos, Merced County; also breeds sparingly in tule 

 marshes of Los Angeles County. Appears upon the seacoast during migrations (regu- 

 larly at Santa Barbara, both in early May and late August), and has been noted as a 

 wanderer at various interior points, notably, Marin County (Mailliard), Marysville 

 (Belding), Owens Valley (A. K. Fisher). A few said to linger in winter, especially 

 in the San Joaquin Valley. 



Authorities. — Baird {Dendrocygna fulva), Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. ix., 1858, 

 p. 770 (Ft. Tejon) ;Barnhart, Condor, vol. iii., 1901, p. 67 (Los Banos; changes in nesting 

 habits); Dickey and van Rossem, Condor, vol. xxv., 1923, p. 39, figs. (Buena Vista Lake; 

 desc. and photos of nest and eggs; habits, etc.); Wetmore and Peters, Proc. Biol. Soc. 

 Wash., vol. xxxv., 1922, p. 42 (Dendrocygna bicolor lielva, new subspecies; type locality, 

 Unlucky Lake, San Diego Co.); Phillips, Natural History of the Ducks, vol. i., 1922. 

 p. 128, pi. 12 (monogr.). 



DENDROCYGNA BICOLOR! The sons of Adam are still wrest- 

 ling with their distinguished ancestor's unfulfilled task of naming the 

 birds. Some of them are doing very badly at it, too, as witness Swainson's 

 designation of this group of birds as "Tree Swans" (oevSoov, a tree, and 

 cygnns, a swan). Bicolor, too, recently foisted upon us by the "law of 

 priority" in place of the highly appropriate fulva, is misleading and pain- 

 ful. The Two-colored Tree-Swan ! 



But if we are disposed to be critical, we may quarrel with the trivial 

 name also. The bird is scarcely a duck, for it has long legs and a fashion 

 of hanging its head in flight, which reminds us strikingly of a near-sighted 

 goose. Moreover, only a very few of our fellow Californians will confess to 

 having ever seen this bird up a tree. The bird with us is preeminently a 

 marsh bird. We are at fault again. One of our Old World friends has 

 done better in calling the bird a Whistling Duck; while a writer, an Indian 

 ornithologist, has ventured the "Larger Whistling Teal." Behold, then, 

 dear reader, this Larger Whistling Two-colored Swantealgooseduck of the 

 marshes, and beholding, tremble! 



Dendrocygna is an exotic, the something different, of the sportsman's 

 world. Moreover, he is a great traveler. Starting originally, no doubt, 

 somewhere in the East Indies, which are still the center of distribution for 

 the genus, fulva (or bicolor) has now achieved the notoriety of four separate 

 distribution centers, or permanent homes; viz., India, central Africa, 



1877 



