ANATIN/E — THE DUCKS — MARECA. 
521 
riorly, velvety black posteriorly ; tertials velvety black, sharply edged with white, the lower one 
with its lower edge entirely pure white ; primaries plain dark cinereous. Rump cinereous, minutely 
undulated on the edges of the feathers ; upper tail-coverts velvety black, the inner webs mostly 
grayish ; tail hoary cinereous. Bill light grayish blue, the end black ; iris brown ; legs and feet 
light bluish. Wing, 10.25-10.75 inches ; culmen, 1.30-1.50 ; tarsus, 1.45-1.65 ; middle toe, 1.65- 
J\I. americana. 
1.85. Adult female : Above, dusky grayish brown, with transverse, rather distant, bars of dull white 
or light ochraceous. Wing-coverts dark dull cinereous, broadly tipped and bordered with white ; 
speculum dull black. Head and neck streaked with blackish upon a dull whitish ground, the 
former color prevailing on the nape and behind the eye. Jugulum pale grayish vinaceous, the 
feathers darker beneath the surface ; sides and flanks deeper vinaceous ; lower tail-coverts trans- 
versely spotted with brown ; rest of lower parts pure white. Young male : Similar to the adult 
female, but the colors more pronounced and the pat- 
tern better defined, especially on the wing. Downy 
young : Above, dark olive, with a sepia tinge ; a spot 
of pale greenish fulvous on the posterior half of the 
wing, one on each side of the back, and one on each 
side of the rump. Lower parts, including head and 
neck, pale fulvous ; a distinct blackish olive stripe from 
bill to and back from the eye, with a wide and con- 
spicuous superciliary stripe of fulvous above it. 
The chief variation in the plumage of adult males 
of this species consists in the extent of the green patch 
and the amount of black spotting on the head, the 
pureness of the white on the forehead, and the extent 
of the white patch on the wing-coverts. The green 
patch on the side of the occiput is usually poorly de- 
fined, and broken up by lighter spotting ; but in No. 
21426, Washington, D. C., and No. 84712, from South- 
ern Ohio (Dr. F. W. Langdon), it is as conspicuous as 
in the adult male of Nettion carolinensis, and of very similar extent and form. Anteriorly, it sur- 
rounds the eye, and posteriorly it passes down the nape (where the two opposite spaces are con- 
fluent for the entire length of the neck) ; its outlines are firm throughout, and its surface is entirely 
unbroken by admixture of white. In the former specimen the black spotting is so aggregated on 
the throat that the gular region is almost uniformly dusky, while the spots at the lower end of 
the white portion of the neck are so large as almost to blend into a collar, uniting the green of the 
vol i. — 66 
