SUMMER DUCK. 23 
The wood duck is nineteen inches in length, and two feet 
four inches in extent ; bill, red, margined with black; a spot 
of black lies between the nostrils, reaching nearly to the tip, 
which is also of the same colour, and furnished with a large 
hooked nail; irides, orange red; front, crown, and pendant 
crest, rich glossy bronze green, ending in violet, elegantly 
marked with a line of pure white running from the upper 
mandible over the eye, and with another band of white pro- 
ceeding from behind the eye, both mingling their long pendant 
plumes with the green and violet ones, producing a rich effect ; 
cheeks and sides of the upper neck, violet; chin, throat, and 
collar round the neck, pure white, curving up in the form of 
a crescent, nearly to the posterior part of the eye; the white 
collar is bounded below with black; breast, dark violet brown, 
marked on the fore part with minute triangular spots of white, 
increasing in size until they spread into the white of the belly ; 
each side of the breast is bounded by a large crescent of white, 
and that again by a broader one of deep black; sides under 
the wings, thickly and beautifully marked with fine undulat- 
ing parallel lines of black, on a ground of yellowish drab; the 
flanks are ornamented with broad alternate semicircular bands 
of black and white; sides of the vent, rich light violet; tail- 
coverts, long, of a hair-like texture at the sides, over which 
they descend, and of a deep black, glossed with green ; back, 
dusky bronze, reflecting green; scapulars, black ; tail, taper- 
ing, dark glossy green above; below, dusky ; primaries, dusky, 
silvery hoary without, tipt with violet blue; secondaries, ereenish 
blue, tipt with white ; wing-coverts, violet blue, tipt with black ; 
vent, dusky ; legs and feet, yellowish red; claws, strong and 
hooked. 
The above is as accurate a‘ description as I can give of a 
very perfect specimen now before me, from which the figure 
in the plate was faithfully copied. 
The female has the head slightly crested; crown, dark 
purple; behind the eye, a bar of white; chin and throat, for 
two inches, also white; head and neck, dark drab; breast 
