THE RUDDY SHELLDRAKE OR BRAHMINY. DUCK. 133 
and in a good many birds of both sexes, which I take to be not 
fully adult, they vary from pale plumbeous to leaden dusky, 
the joints being generally darker than the intermediate spaces, 
and the webs and claws always much darker; the webs, how- 
ever, are often quite light coloured just along the junction with 
the toes. 
In both sexes the wings have a conspicuous tubercle ; largest 
in the male, near the carpal joint, which in some old Drakes 
is close upon half an inch in length. 
THE PLATE is fairly good, though what the black-headed 
lusus nature flying in the right hand corner of the back ground 
may be, it would puzzle any ornithologist to decide. 
Neither Jerdon nor any single European writer who has 
dealt with this species seem to have been aware of the fact 
that the black collar on the male’s neck is purely seasonal, has, 
as a rule, disappeared by the 15th November, and is rarely 
reassumed before the 15th of March. 
Specimens obtained, when the birds first arrive, prior to 
the 15th November, very commonly show faint traces of the 
black ring; but I have only met with one specimen killed 
during the latter half of November that exhibited this, and I 
have never seen a single bird killed in December, January or 
the first-half of February that showed any short of traces 
of it. 
Once or twice I have seen male birds, shot towards the 
end of February, which were beginning to assume the ring ; 
but it is quite the middle of March before the generality show 
it clearly, and many are only just assuming it at the close of 
that month. 
Besides the want of the ring and the smaller size, the female 
birds. differ in having, (at any rate during the cold season,) the 
whole anterior portion of the head pure white, while in the 
ea this part is shaded with orange buff like the rest of the 
ead. 
It isa mistake to suppose that the females, as a body, are 
normally duller coloured than the males. I have many females. 
now before me just as richly coloured as azy males. But the 
tone of plumage in doth sexes varies to an extraordinary (and 
to me, at present, inexplicable) extent. 
In some birds the plumage is precisely of the tint shown 
in the plate; in some it is rather deeper coloured, especially 
on the lower parts; in some it is considerably lighter. Again 
in a great many birds killed at all periods during the cold 
season, some or all of the feathers of the lower neck all round, 
interscapulary region, breast and abdomen, are more or 
less broadly fringed at the tips with pale orange buff, in some 
cases so pale as to be little more than buffy white. In some 
