TUFTED DUCK 
227 
tuft hanging from the back of its head, and the 
eye is even more brilliantly yellow than that of the 
Golden-eye itself. There is a small white wing- 
patch, but this is scarcely visible when the bird is 
at its normal safe distance, and need not be taken 
into account. The Duck has the same outline 
pattern, but the side-patch is brownish-grey, and 
very nearly as dark as the sooty-brown of the rest 
of her plumage. If it is kept in mind that the 
white on the Tufted Duck (and its corresponding 
paler brown in the female bird) is practically all in 
this one shoe-shaped side-patch, not even its general 
likeness to the Golden-eye, and its own conspicuous 
yellow eye, will lead to a confusion of identity. 
The nest is built in May or June, of the usual dry 
grass and down, in or under bushy or sedgy cover 
near the water which the Ducks frequent. The 
eggs are of the same size and colour as the 
Mallard's ; indeed, the nests and eggs of a number 
of the Duck family are so much alike that only a 
knowledge of the parent bird enables them to be 
identified. Expert ornithologists are also able, as a 
rule, to determine the species of Duck to which a 
nest belongs by a minute examination of the body- 
down with which it is lined. 
