382 
PINTAIL DUCK. 
147. A. 5. — Ih. p. 192. 13. — Will. p. 289. t. 72. — Anas longicauda, Briss. 6. p. 
369. 16. t. 34. f. 1. 2. — -lb. 8vo. 2. p. 459. — Canard a longue queue, Biiff. Ois. 
9. p. 199. t. 13. — Tritzihoa, Raii, Syn. p. 175. — Sea Pheasant, or Cracker, lUi//. 
(Angl.) p. 376. t. 73 — ALbin, 2. t. 94. 95. — Flem. Br. Anim. p. 124. — Pintail, 
Br. Zool. 2. No. 282. — lb. fol. 156. t. Q. 8. — Arct. Zool. 2. No. 500 Lath. 
Syn. 6. p. 526. 72. — Piilt. Cat. Dorset, p. 21. — Wale. Syn. 1. t. 72. — Lewin’s 
Br. Birds, 7. t. 261. — Mont. Orn. Diet. 1. — Linn. Trans. 4. pi. 13. lig. 6. — 
(Trachea.) 
Provincial . — Winter Duck. 
The weight of this species is about two pounds ; length twenty 
inches. Bill black, bluish on the sides ; irides dark ; the head and 
upper part of the neck before rufous brown ; the sides of the head 
glossed with purple ; lower part of the neck before white, running up 
on each side to the hind head, divided by a brown line down the back 
of the neck ; nape dusky, glossed with purple ; breast and belly white ; 
back and sides of the breast marked with numerous small undulated 
black and white lines ; the scapulars black ; the inner ones long, 
pointed, and margined with greyish white ; smaller coverts of the 
wings fine ash colour; the greater coverts of the secondary quills 
tippped with bay ; the greater quills dusky brown ; lesser quills glossy 
purplish-green on their outer webs, black near the ends, tipped with 
white ; the two middle feathers of the tail are three inches longer than 
the rest, narrow, pointed, and black ; the others dusky, edged with 
white ; vent black ; legs dusky, inclining to lead colour. 
The female is somewhat less ; the head and neck rusty-brown, 
streaked with dusky ; the back and scapulars dusky-brown, trans- 
versely marked with narrow white bars across each feather ; the spe- 
culum in the wing something like the male, but less conspicuous ; the 
under parts light rusty-brown, mottled with a deeper shade ; the tail is 
brown and cuneiform; the two middle feathers crossed with one or two 
pale lines, but are not much longer than the next ; the number of fea- 
thers are sixteen. 
It has been proved, by keeping them domesticated, that they moult 
twice a-year, in June and October. 
*This double moulting in so short a time, peculiar to some species 
of birds, is a most curious and extraordinary circumstance that seems 
to bid defiance to all human reasoning. That some birds should change 
their plumage with the season is evidently a gift of nature to accommo- 
date their colour to their habits ; as in the ptarmigan, that changes his 
mottled plumage in the autumn for that of white, in order that he may 
rest secure upon the bosom of the snow during winter. But there is 
no such evident reason for a double change in the short space of two 
or three months in the same season. The fact, however, now established 
