14-i CLUCKING TEAL. 



Specific Cliaraciers. — Two large quadrangular patches of fawn- 

 colour, separated by a black band bordered with white, on the 

 side of the head; from the eye <a band of rich glossy green 

 extends backwards, and, passing round the occiput, forms a 

 demi-coUar. Speculum black, edged with white, and above with 

 dark glossy green ar:d russet; lower part of the flanks near the 

 tail terminated by a broad transverse band of pure glossy silvery 

 white, (male.) Tail with sixteen quills. Length of male fifteen 

 inches and a half; carpus to tip eight inches and a fifth; tarsus 

 one inch and three tenths; middle toe and claw one inch and 

 three tenths; beak from foreliead one inch and a half; from 

 rictus one inch and four fifths; breadth of beak below three 

 fifths of an inch. Female. — Length fifteen inches; carpus to tip 

 seven inches; tarsus one inch and one tenth; middle toe and 

 claw one inch and three fifths; beak from forehead one inch 

 and three tenths, from rictus one inch and a half; breadth of 

 beak below half an inch. 



This beautiful Teal must not be confounded witli 

 the Bimaculated Duck of the English authoj-s. Pennant, 

 it is true, identified his bird of that name with the 

 Anas glocitans of Pallas, ("British Zoology," vol. ii, 

 p. 602, pi. 100, fig. 2, ed. 1776.) Yarrell, ("British 

 Birds," first and second edition, vol. iii, p. 260,) figures 

 a Duck as the Bimaculated Duck of Pennant, and 

 describes it as identical with Anas glocitans. This 

 bird was, however, a hybrid between the Pintail and 

 the Wigeon, and in the last edition of Yarrell's 

 work has been very properly withdraw-n. In the 

 fourteenth volume of the "Linnean Transactions," Mr. 

 Vigors describes a male and female Teal, taken in a 

 decoy at Maldon, in Essex, as the true Anas glocitans, 

 and the Bimaculated Duck of Pennant. But he makes 

 this identification on the authority of Pennant, expressing 

 himself a doubt whether they are the same, as his 

 specimen differed from the figure in the "Acta 

 Stockholmiensia," and at the same time admitting 



