THE WHITE-FACED STIFF-TAIL DUCK. 289 
in the old males, with a larger or smaller yellowish red or orange 
spot or bar near the tip of the upper mandible, which in some 
forms a terminal band at the tips of 60/2 mandibles, never, 
however, including the nail, which always remains black or 
dusky. 
THE PLATE gives a good idea of the species, but the bills 
are wrongly coloured. The male figured is not an old adult ; 
in these the scapulars and the greater part of the wings 
become uniform white without any of the markings shown in 
the plate. The figure of the female also is good, but does not 
represent an old bird ; in this the head is darker and browner ; 
the base of the neck all round is greyer ; the back is darker and 
the pale margins to the feathers more or less obsolete. 
NEITHER SEX of this species can well be mistaken for that of 
any other that visits us, as independent of the very character- 
istic plumage, the bills are peculiarly shaped; short, much 
higher than broad at the base, and narrowed off towards the 
point like a Wigeon’s. 
THERE ARE only two other known species properly referable, 
in my opinion, to this genus, both of which belong to North 
America (though straggling within European limits), and these 
have already been referred to above when speaking of the distri- 
bution of the present species. 
THERE IS yet another species of which we have given no 
figure, as when our plates were prepared, no one had any idea 
that it occurred within a thousand miles of our Empire, but 
which having now been procured at Khelat-i-Ghilzai in Southern 
Afghanistan, will probably also occur as a straggler in the 
Punjab and Sindh, and, therefore, requires some notice here. 
That is 
THE WHITE-FACED STIFF-TAIL DUCK.* 
Erismatura leucocephala, Scopolz. 
On the 20th October 1870, Colonel O. B. St. John, R. E., at that 
time, I think, Governor of Kandahar, shot a couple of ducks, 
of a type quite unknown to him, in the Jameh river near 
Khelat-i-Ghilzai, which he kindly forwarded to me with other 
specimens, 
* This is commonly called ‘‘The White-headed Duck.” But the name, a mere 
translation of the scientfic one, is incorrect ; the bird is White-faced. not White- 
headed, and it belongs to a distinct section of the ducks, characterized zrzter alta 
but specially, by their stiff tails. 
Nf 
