512 
LAMELLIROSTRAL SWIMMERS - ANSERES. 
plumbeous-blue, the ungui, base, and strip along culmen, black ; iris brown ; feet dusky. Adult 
male in summer : “ Head, neck, and under parts generally as in the adult female, except that the 
abdomen is duller in color and less marked ; back dull dark brown, each feather having one or two 
irregular dirty-white bars, and some being irregularly vermiculated with that color ; rump washed 
with gray ; tail similar in color to that of the bird last described [i.e. adult male in winter], but the 
two central feathers are but slightly elongated ; wings also as in the last-described stage of plu- 
mage, but the elongated secondaries and scapulars are shorter and blunter, and in color dark gray, 
black along the centre, some of the latter being- 
marked like the back ; flanks grayish brown, every 
feather having broad yellowish-white bars ; under 
tail-coverts as in the female” (Sharpe & Dres- 
ser). Adult female : Above, plumbeous-dusky, 
variegated transversely with yellowish white or 
pale ochraceous ; these markings sometimes irreg- 
ularly bar-like, but oftener of U-shaped form, one 
on the edge, and one in the middle portion of each 
feather. Wing much as in the male, but metallic 
color of the speculum duller, the ochraceous bar 
anterior to it paler, and the white terminal bar 
tinged with buff ; wing-coverts narrowly tipped 
with whitish. Upper tail-coverts broadly edged 
with whitish, and more or less marked with 
irregular — usually Y-shaped — lines of the same. 
Tail-feathers dusky, edged with whitish, and with 
more or less distinct indications of distant bars 
of the same. Head and neck dingy whitish, tinged with brown on the superior surface, which is 
heavily streaked with blackish, the other portions more finely and thinly streaked, the throat being 
nearly immaculate. Rest of the lower parts dingy white, the feathers more grayish beneath the 
surface ; crissum and flanks streaked with dusky, but abdomen, etc., usually immaculate. Young 
male : Similar to the female, but markings on upper parts more bar-like, and lower parts some- 
times nearly wholly streaked. Young female (No. 54633, Kadiak, Alaska, Aug. 1, 1868; F. 
Bischoff) : Speculum dilute raw-umber, marbled toward base of feathers with dusky. All the 
feathers of the upper parts conspicuously and broadly bordered with buffy white ; lower parts 
everywhere densely streaked with dusky. Downy young: Above, grayish raw-umber, with a 
white stripe along each side of the back, a white space on the wing, and a white superciliary stripe. 
Beneath, grayish white, with a very faint yellowish tinge ; an umber-brown stripe behind the eye, 
and an indistinct space of the same over the ears. 
Male, total length, about 26.00-28.00 inches ; extent, 36.00 ; wing, 10.25-11.10 ; tail, 7.25-9.50 ; 
culmen, 1.85-2.15; width of bill, .70-. 80 ; tarsus, 1.55-1.85; middle toe, 1.70-2.10. Female, 
wing, 9.60-10.10 ; tail. 4.50-5.00 ; culmen, 1.80-2.10 ; width of bill, .65-. 75 ; tarsus, 1.65 ; 
middle toe, 1.80. 
The range of individual variation of the colors in this species is very slight, consisting of differ- 
ences that are scarcely worthy of mention. European specimens differ, however, very appreciably 
from North American ones in narrower speculum, but not in other respects. Two males measure 
as follows : Wing, 10.30-11.00 inches; tail (elongated middle feathers), 8.50 ; culmen, 1.85-1.95 ; 
width of bill, .70-75 ; tarsus, 1.40-1.60 ; middle toe, 1.85-1. 90. 1 
The Pin-tail Duck is cosmopolitan, and enjoys a distribution exceeded in extent by 
few birds of any kind. In North America it is found from Greenland and the Arc- 
tic coast almost to the Isthmus of Panama. Less abundant, wherever found, than 
the Mallard, its distribution appears to be quite as extensive. In the Old World it 
is found throughout Europe, in Asia as far south as Ceylon, in Japan, in different 
portions of China, and in Northern Africa. 
1 Sharpe & Dresser ( “ History of the Birds of Europe,” Part XIX. ) give the dimensions of the European 
Pin-tail as follows : “Total length, 2 feet ; culmen, 2.2 inches ; wing, 11.2 ; tail, 7.5 ; tarsus, 1.6.” 
