382 



PINTAIL DUCK. 



147. A. 5.— Ib. p. 192. 13 Will. p. 289. t. 72 Anas longicauda, Briss. 6. p. 



369. 16. t. 34. f. 1. 2.— Ib. 8vo. 2. p. 459.— Canard a longue queue, Buff. Ois. 



9. p. 199. t. 13 Tritzihoa, Raii, Syn. p. 175. — Sea Pheasant, or Cracker, Will. 



(Angl.) p. 376. t. 73 Albin, 2. t. 94. 95.— Flem. Br. Anim. p. 124.— Pintail, 



Br. Zool. 2. No. 282 Ib. fol. 156. t. Q. 8.— Arct. Zool. 2. No. 500 Lath. 



Syn. 6. p. 526. 72 Pult. Cat. Dorset, p. 21.— Wale. Syn. 1. t. 72 — Lewin's 



Br. Birds, 7. t. 261 Mont. Orn. Diet. 1— Linn. Trans. 4. pi. 13. fig. 6.— 



(Trachea.) 



Provincial. — Winter Duck. 



The weight of this species is about two pounds ; length twenty 

 inches. Bill black, bluish on the sides ; irides dark ; the head and 

 upper part of the neck before rufous brown ; the sides of the head 

 glossed with purple ; lower part of the neck before white, running up 

 on each side to the hind head, divided by a brown line down the back 

 of the neck ; nape dusky, glossed with purple ; breast and belly white; 

 back and sides of the breast marked with numerous small undulated 

 black and white lines ; the scapulars black ; the inner ones long, 

 pointed, and margined with greyish white ; smaller coverts of the 

 wings fine ash colour ; the greater coverts of the secondary quills 

 tippped with bay ; the greater quills dusky brown ; lesser quills glossy 

 purplish-green on their outer webs, black near the ends, tipped with 

 white ; the two middle feathers of the tail are three inches longer than 

 the rest, narrow, pointed, and black; the others dusky, edged with 

 white ; vent black ; legs dusky, inclining to lead colour. 



The female is somewhat less ; the head and neck rusty-brown, 

 streaked with dusky ; the back and scapulars dusky-brown, trans- 

 versely marked with narrow white bars across each feather ; the spe- 

 culum in the wing something like the male, but less conspicuous ; the 

 under parts light rusty-brown, mottled with a deeper shade ; the tail is 

 brown and cuneiform ; the two middle feathers crossed with one or two 

 pale lines, but are not much longer than the next ; the number of fea- 

 thers are sixteen. 



It has been proved, by keeping them domesticated, that they moult 

 twice a-year, in June and October. 



*This double moulting in so short a time, peculiar to some species 

 of birds, is a most curious and extraordinary circumstance that seems 

 to bid defiance to all human reasoning. That some birds should change 

 their plumage with the season is evidently a gift of nature to accommo- 

 date their colour to their habits ; as in the ptarmigan, that changes his 

 mottled plumage in the autumn for that of white, in order that he may 

 rest secure upon the bosom of the snow during winter. But there is 

 no such evident reason for a double change in the short space of two 

 or three months in the same season. The fact, however, now established 



