20 The Natural History of British Ducks 
Stage 2 (June 30, approximately, in England, and July 10 in Scotland).-— 
The general moult has now set in in preparation for what is known as the 
eclipse plumage. The feathers over the whole body except the wings are 
dropping and being renewed. Cheek feathers, which have already changed 
colour to autumn tints, are now falling out, as well as the longer bronze 
feathers on the top and back of the head which have hitherto undergone little or 
no change. This, too, is remarkable — that while for the most part the feathers 
now coming in are in colour pure brown, as we see them in autumn, there 
are frequent examples (as in the feather figured facing page 22) of the new 
feathers coming in exactly of the same colour as those of the spring plumage 
which have just been moulted. This is particularly noticeable amongst the 
feathers of the breast and rump. At a first glance the observer, on noticing 
the light grey feathers on the breast of the bird shown in Plate IV., would 
imagine that they were the remnant of the old plumage which has not yet 
fallen. Such, however, is not the case ; they are, in fact, fresh feathers which 
have come in concurrently with the brown spotted ones, and will in the course 
of a week change their colour completely to that of the others around them. 
Many of them, if they do not come in pure grey, appear, by way of com- 
promise, with their edges ribbed. At the beginning of this stage (June 30), 
the tail is generally half-moulted, the upper central feathers new, and the outer 
old and about to drop, but almost changed in colour like the new ones. 
About a week or ten days after June 30, we may say that the drake has 
to all intents and purposes completely changed to his autumn dress, for his 
brown dress is all new except his wings, which now begin to moult. When, 
at last, the quill wing-feathers begin to fall, they do so with extreme rapidity 
— I have known them all come out together in one day, the new flush 
starting at once.^ Sometimes they are cast before the drake has entirely 
assumed his brown dress ; but that rarely happens. 
The most important fact to be borne in mind in all these various changes. 
^ Surveying the whole moult, there is a rule that the feathers fall and are renewed in patches, but this rule has 
its exceptions, for sometimes the moult is simultaneous over the whole plumage. 
