THE PINK-HEADED DUCK. 179 
flesh coloured ; irides deep orange; tarsus, web, and nails dark 
slate, inclining to purple ; lower mandible more deeply coloured 
than upper.’ 
Hodgson gives the following of an ascertained female :-— 
“Length, 23°0 ; expanse, 360; tail, 4:5; tarsus, (but this is 
to the sole of the foot) 2°18; weight, 2 lbs. 
“Tris yellow brown ; bill orey with a rosy tint; legs dusky.” 
Jerdon says of the male : — 
“ Bill reddish white, rosy at the base, and faintly bluish at the 
tip; irides fine orange red; legs and feet blackish, with a tinge 
ei reas Wength, 24imches; wing, 115; extent, 30; ‘tail 4725 ; 
billvat front, 2°25 > tarsus, 225°. mid-toe, 2°37." 
This is by no means all that could be desired, and it is to be 
hoped that all sportsmen who shoot these ducks, for some time 
to come, will carefully record measurements, weight, and colours 
of the soft parts ; and, after ascertaining the sex of their ae 
mens, favour me with these particulars. 
THE PLATE.—The figure in the foreground would be a very 
fair representation of an adult male, had not the artist chosen 
to colour the soft parts after the plate in Gray’s Ill. Gen. of 
Birds, and quite wrongly 
But it must be understood that even adult males vary a good 
deal in plumage, and in a specimen now before me the 
entire upper and under surface of the body is much darker, 
and much more nearly black than in the particular specimen 
figured, while the green of the tertiaries is also much less bright. 
In this specimen, too, obtained on the 7th of March, there is 
a distinct, though short, half-coronal, half-occipital, crest, of 
a brighter and purer rosy than the pink of the rest of the head. 
The figure in the background is said to be that of a young 
bird just able to fly. I have never seen such a specimen, but the 
figure was taken, I believe, from one in some museum at home ; 
and except in the matter cf the colour of the bill, which was 
probably grey, is perhaps a fairly correct representation of 
the young. 
Of (I presume) somewhat older birds, Jerdon says :— 
“The young have the head and neck pale vinous-isabella 
colour, with the top of the head, nape, and hind neck brown ; 
the whole plumage lighter brown, in some mixed with whitish 
beneath.” 
Hodgson figures a female, adult according to him but which 
is probably not fully so, which has the head, including chin and 
throat, rosy ; the upper neck all round pale whitey brown, with a 
rosy tinge, and with a brown band down the centre of crown, 
occiput “and nape; the lower neck all round pale brownish 
white, with large, dark- brown, closely-set roundish spots, and 
the entire breast and abdomen white or yellowish white, 
