180 THE PINK-HEADED DUCK. 
with apparently a moderately broad, brown, shaft-stripe to 
each feather. 
Of the female Jerdon says that she “has the pink of the 
head somewhat more dull and pale, and the vertex has a 
brownish spot in some, which is continued faintly down the 
back of the neck.” 
I have a female which certainly bears no traces of immatu- 
rity, the entire plumage of which, above and below, is duller, 
paler, and more of a smoky brown than in the male; the pink 
of the head is dingier and paler, and there is a broad, brown, 
medial band from forehead over crown and occiput, and 
(diminishing rapidly in width) on the back of the upper neck. 
But the most conspicuous difference is that the dull pink of the 
face runs on, unbroken, over the entire chin, throat, and front 
of the upper neck, and there is no trace of the dark band 
along chin, throat, and entire front of the neck so conspicuous 
in the male. 
THERE IS no other species known of this genus which, in most 
external characters, is very close torestricted Azas. Indeed, but 
for the extraordinary eggs laid by the Pink-headed Duck, I should 
not have accepted the genus Rhodonessa. But it seems to me that 
such an extraordinary difference in the shape and texture of 
the eggs must indicate widely different descent and anatomical 
differences, and constitutes a primd facie ground for generic 
separation. 
It has been suggested that the colouring of this species is 
very close to that of the Red-crested Pochard, and affinities 
between the two have been hinted at, based on this. 
But this plumage resemblance is purely superficial ; it does not 
extend to the females. The bills are in no way of the same type, 
and the hind toe of the Pink-headed Duck is long, thin, unlobed, 
quite of the same type as, though proportionally longer than, 
those of the Mallard and the Grey Duck, and not at all of the 
type of that of the Red-crested Pochard. 
