324 duck. 



Wigeon, W hewer or Whim, Gen. Syn. vi. 518. Id. Sup. ii. 354. Br. Zoo/, ii. No. 

 •286. Id.fol. 157. Add. pi. Q. Id, 1812. ii. 273. Arct. Zool. ii. 574. K. Will. 

 Engl. 375. pi. 72. Albin, ii. pi. 99. Bewick, ii. pi. in p. 352. Lewin, vii. pi. 

 251. Wa/cot, i. pi. 71. P«7f. Z)or*. p. 21. Orrc. .Die*. # Supp. 



LENGTH twenty inches; weight twenty-three ounces. Bill 

 narrow, one inch and a half long, and of a bluish lead-colour, tip 

 black ; top of the head cream, a little mottled with dusky spots ; 

 over the bill almost white; head and neck bright bay, spotted with 

 dusky, the lower part of it behind, and the breast vinaceous ; the 

 lower part and belly white; back and scapulars minutely undulated 

 across with black and white lines ; sides of the body the same, but 

 paler; wing- coverts brown, more or less mixed with white; quills 

 dusky, some of them banded with white ; the outer webs of the 

 middle ones green, forming a speculum, bounded above and below 

 with black ; belly white; vent black; legs dusky lead-colour. 



The female is only seventeen inches long, brown, the middle 

 of the feathers darker; fore part of the neck and breast paler; 

 scapulars dark brown, edged with rufous white ; wings and belly as 

 in the male. Both sexes are alike till the following spring after 

 hatching, when the male, about March, gains his full plumage, 

 but is said to lose it again the end of July, and with it, in some 

 measure, the voice, which is thought by some to be very like 

 the sound of a flute. The flesh is much esteemed. Whether the 

 female ever gets so high a state of plumage, is not said by authors ; 

 but on my receiving two birds, with the external appearance 

 of being of the male sex, one of them, to my surprise, turned out to 

 be a female : these were sent to me from Weymouth, January 1795. 



The males vary exceedingly ; some have the wing coverts 

 wholly white, and the scapulars marked with long lines of white 

 and black ; in others the coverts have no white, and the lines 

 of the scapulars are very obscure. These birds in the various stages 

 of plumage are sold in London under the name of Easterlings, and 

 the female that of Lady-fowl ; they are called also Pandle-whews, 



