WILD FOWL 
PINTAIL 
DAFILA ACUTA 
(Plates XXVI and XXVIII, Fig. 7) 
Dafila caudacuta, Gould, Birds Europe, v, pi. 365 (1837). 
Dafila acuta, Dresser, Birds Europe, vi, p. 531, pis. 430, 431 (1873) ; Hume & Marshall, 
Game Birds Ind., iii, p. 189, pi. 25 (1880) ; Salvador!, Cat. Birds Brit, Mus., xxvii, p. 270 
(1895) ; Saunders, III. Man. Brit. Birds, p. 429 (1899) ; Millais, Surface-feeding Ducks, p. 92, 
pis. xxxvii-xli (1902). 
A nas acuta, Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. Birds, part xiii, pi. (1890). 
DULT male. — ^Head and neck brown, tinged with rufous on 
the crown and throat, and faintly glossed with purple 
/ on the sides of the occiput; upper half of the hind -neck 
J black, with a white stripe on each side, confluent 
M with the white of the lower neck and chest; rest of the 
Vk. hind -neck, mantle and back blackish, narrowly waved 
with white; long inner secondary quills and scapulars black, edged with 
grey more or less mottled with brown; wings ashy-grey; outer webs of 
the median and inner secondaries dull bronze -purple shading into green 
and forming a speculum, which is edged with black and white externally 
and pale chestnut internally, the latter band being formed by the tips of 
the greater secondary-coverts ; sides and flanks with narrow wavy bars 
of dark brown and white; under tail -coverts black edged externally with 
white; a white patch on each side of the rump; under wing-coverts 
mostly ash-grey; axillaries white, mottled with grey; middle tail-feathers 
black, much lengthened and pointed, the outer pairs grey, edged with 
whitish. Iris dark brown; bill black, dull leaden-blue on the sides; feet 
greyish -black. Total length about 25 inches; bill 2*0 inches; wing 10*5 
inches; tail 6*8 inches; tarsus 1 *6 inch. 
Adult male in eclipse-plumage . — Resembles the adult female, but may be 
distinguished by the metallic green alar speculum, and by being darker 
and richer in colour. 
Adult female . — General colour above, including the sides and flanks, 
dusky greyish -brown, varied with irregular bars of yellowish -white or 
pale ochraceous ; head and neck pale buff, narrowly streaked with dark 
brown, and becoming nearly uniform white on the chin and throat ; wings 
ashy -brown, all the feathers being narrowly edged, and the secondaries 
tipped with white; rest of the underparts dull white, more or less 
333 
