The Pintail {Dafila acuta) 



By Theodore S. Van Dyke 



Range. — Breeds on Arctic coast from Alaska to Keewatin and south to south- 

 ern California, southern Colorado, northern Nebraska, northern Iowa, and north- 

 ern Illinois ; winters from southern British Columbia, Nevada, Arizona, southern 

 Missouri, southern Wisconsin, southern Ohio, and Delaware south to Porto Rico 

 and Panama. 



The pintail, one of our most beautiful ducks, is easy of recognition owing to 

 its long slender neck and elongated pointed tail. The latter has caused it to be 

 known locally in England as the *'sea pheasant." It is no longer common in the 

 Eastern States but continues to exist in considerable numbers in the West. It 

 is swift of wing, and an old pintail coming down wind will tax the nerve and 

 skill of the most experienced sportsman. In California I once witnessed a life 

 and death race between an adult male pintail and a prairie falcon. The duck 

 covered a half mile at its topmost speed, but notwithstanding its swiftness, the 

 falcon outmatched it, and would have dined on duck that October day had not 

 the fowl, apparently realizing the extremity of its danger, swerved in a half circle 

 toward me, the interested spectator, when the falcon, too distrustful of man to 

 follow, gave up the chase in disgust. Most wild ducks are fond of berries, and 

 Nelson states that in far-off Alaska in August the pintail fattens on berries and 

 becomes the most delicious waterfowl of the region. The pintail is one of the 

 few ducks that braves the long two-thousand-mile trip from the Aleutians to the 

 Hawaiian group apparently for the pleasure of wintering in those sunny islands. 



Description. — Adult male: Head and upper neck hair-brown, darker or 

 warmer brown on top of head, with faint greenish or wine-purple iridescence on 

 sides of occiput; a narrow white stripe from occiput obliquely backward and 

 downward to join white of breast; enclosed space on hind-neck blackish; fore- 

 neck, breast and belly white, faintly dusky-barred on lower belly ; hind-neck, back, 

 sides of breast, and sides finely wavy-barred dusky and white ; posterior scapu- 

 lars and tertiaries lanceolate, heavily striped, broadly with black, more narrowly 

 with buffy white, light brownish gray, and fuscous ; rump and behind with mesial 

 brownish dusky and obscure wavy-barring of fuscious and whitish ; central pair 

 of tail-feathers much elongated, blackish or with metallic reflections ; crissum 

 white, separated from belly by dull white area and broad flank patches; wing- 

 coverts plain brownish gray, the posterior row tipped with cinnamon-rufous; 

 speculum dull bronzy green or faintly glossy with dusky on either side, and bor- 

 dered behind by black and terminal white ; axillars white with a little mottling of 

 light grayish brown ; lining of wings mottled brownish gray and white ; bill black, 

 edged with grayish blue ; feet and legs grayish blue ; iris brown. Adult females: 

 Obscurely colored; pale ochraceous or whitish on belly; ochraceous-buff or brown- 

 ish buff on remaining under parts ; much darker, nearly cinnamon-brown on 



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