WIGEON. 
543 
with two or three slender bars of ferruginous brown ; scapulars dusky 
black with ferrug’inous margins ; breast plain vinaceous brown ; the 
speculum of the wing- is not g-reen as in the male, but wholly black, 
except the tips, which are white ; two of the tertials are margined with 
white on the outer web ; those next the body with rufous margins ; 
many of the smaller coverts, which are brown, are margined with 
white ; the tail consists of fourteen feathers ; legs like those of the 
male. 
* The labyrinth at the bottom of the trachea of the male, very much 
resembles that of the pintail, being bony and globular ; but differs in 
some respects, when examined together, in its attachment to the side 
of the windpipe ; but which the figures, given in the Linnsean Trans- 
actions quoted, will better explain. 
It has been generally asserted that the Wigeon will not breed in 
confinement, or at least that the female will not make a nest and per- 
form the act of incubation ; but that she will lay eggs, which are gene- 
rally dropped into the water. 
Lord Stanley informs us that he procured a female pintail in Lon- 
don that had bred in confinement ; this bird paired with a male Wigeon 
in his Lordship’s menagerie, and produced the first year nine or ten 
young, all of which were destroyed by the rats. The second year she 
produced six young, four of which are now living, and are above a year 
old. It is remarkable that this pintail was so tenacious of her nest in 
the advanced state of incubation, as to suffer herself to be lifted to 
examine the eggs, and continued to effect the hatching of them. In 
the last year the same bird produced eggs, but from some unknown 
cause forsook them. 
The hybrid birds were much plainer than the male pintail, but more 
like the female, with a little of the head of the male Wigeon. The 
male has the posterior parts somewhat like the male pintail, but the 
middle feathers of the tail are not so long.* 
The Wigeon is found in most parts of Europe ; breeds in the more 
northern parts. Visits England in the autumn, when great numbers 
are caught in our decoys for the table, being esteemed an excellent 
bird. It also frequents our rivers and salt-water inlets in small flocks. 
WILD DUCK.— A name for the Duck. 
WILD GOOSE. — A name for the Bean Goose. 
WILD SWAN {Cygnus ferus, Ray.) 
Anas Cygnus, Linn. Syst. 1. p. 194. — Cygnus ferns, Raii, Syn. p. 136. A. 2. — 
Will. p. 272. t. 69 Cygne sauvage, Buff. Ois. 9. p. 3 Temm. Man. d’Orn. 
2. p. 828. — Wild Swan, Br. Zool. 2. No. 264. — Ih. fob 149. t. Addend. Will. 
