100 - SUMMER DUCK. 



the eye; the white collar is bounded below with black; breast 

 dark violet brown, marked on the fore part with minute triangu- 

 lar spots of white, increasing in size until tliey spread into the 

 white of the belly; each side of the breast is bounded by a large 

 crescent of white, and that again by a broader one of deep black ; 

 sides under the wings thickly and beautifully marked with fine 

 undulating parallel lines of black, on a ground of yellowish drab ; 

 the flanks are ornamented with broad alternate semicircular bands 

 of black and white; sides of the vent rich light violet; tail coverts 

 long, of a hair-like texture at the sides, over which they descend, 

 and of a deep black glossed with green ; back dusky bronze, re- 

 flecting green; scapulars black; tail tapering, dark glossy green 

 above, below dusky; primaries dusky, silvery hoary without, tipt 

 with violet blue ; secondaries greenish blue, tipt with white ; wing 

 coverts violet blue tipt with black; vent dusky; legs and feet yel- 

 lowish red, claws strong and hooked. 



The above is as accurate a description as I can give of a very 

 perfect specimen now before me, from which the figure in the plate 

 was faithfully copied. 



The female has the head slightly crested, crown dark purple, 

 behind the eye a bar of white ; chin, and throat for two inches, 

 also white; head and neck dark drab; breast dusky brown, mark- 

 ed with large triangular spots of white ; back dark glossy bronze 

 brown, with some gold and greenish reflections. Speculum of the 

 wings nearly the same as in the male, but the fine pencilling of 

 the sides, and the long hair-like tail coverts, are wanting; the tail 

 is also shorter. 



