510 
LAMELLIROSTRAL SWIMMERS — ANSERES. 
their nest on the edge of the pond, and reared a large brood. The young were per- 
fectly domesticated, and made no attempt to fly away, even though their wings were 
perfect. 
This species, as Professor Kumlien informs me, occurs both in the spring and fall 
at Lake Koskonong, but is rather, rare. He has a mounted specimen shot Nov. 14th, 
187 4. He has never seen it there in summer, but has met with it in spring in marshes 
covered with water, and in the fall on the mud-bars and among the wild rice. It is 
very seldom seen far from the shore. Mr. B. F. Goss, of Pewaukee, Wis., writes me 
that it breeds rarely in his vicinity. About May 24, 1868, he spent several days on 
an island in Horicon Lake, where the Gadwall had just begun to lay. He found 
three nests, two containing one, and one three eggs. The nests did not differ in their 
construction from the Mallard’s, but were more concealed, all of them being in thick 
cover, one perhaps ten feet from the water, the farthest about three rods. The eggs 
were smaller and lighter colored than the Mallard’s. It was found breeding on Shoal 
Lake in 1865 by Mr. Donald Gunn, and at New Westminster by Mr. H. W. Elliott. 
Dr. Kennerly speaks of finding it very common in April in the vicinity of Janos Kiver, 
Chihuahua, going in large flocks. Beyond that point it was not observed. 
Eggs of this species in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution (No. 12723) 
from Shoal Lake are of a uniform cream-color, and range from 2.05 inches in length 
to 2.20 inches, and from 1.45 to 1.55 inches in breadth. 
Genus DAFILA, Stephens. 
Dafila, Stephens, Shaw’s Gen. Zool. XII. ii. 1824, 126 (type, Anas acuta, Linn.). 
Phasianurus, Wagl. Isis, 1832, 1235 (same type). 
Char. Bill longer than the head, narrow, the edges parallel, deep through the base, but other- 
wise much depressed, the basal portion of the culmen much ascending. In the male, the scapulars, 
tertials, and middle rectrices lanceolate, the latter elongated considerably beyond the other tail- 
D. acuta. 
feathers. The adult male in winter plumage very different from the adult female, but the sexes 
much alike in summer. 
As defined above, the genus Dafila includes but a single species, the D. acuta, or Common Pin- 
tail, of the northern hemisphere. Several South American species have been referred to it ; but 
