THE SHOVET.ERS. 
267 
Adult Female. — General colour above dusky-brown, with ashy 
margins and irregular sandy-buff markings and marblings, the 
scapulars paler, barred and edged with whitish or pale buff ; 
lower back and rump blackish-brown, the upper tail-coverts 
edged and irregularly barred with white or buff ; wing-coverts 
blue like the male, the greater series more dingy and tipped 
with white ; the quills as in the male and the speculum also 
metallic green, but the inner secondaries brown; crown of 
head nearly uniform blackish, as also the nape ; lores, fore- 
part of cheeks, and chin whitish ; remainder of sides of face 
and sides of neck dull reddish-buff, streaked with narrow lines 
of dusky ; the lower throat similarly streaked ; remainder of 
under surface buff, a little paler in the centre of the abdomen ; 
the chest and sides of body and flanks scalloped with dusky 
bars and markings, principally of a horse-shoe shape, very 
thickly distributed on the chest and less clo.sely so on the 
flanks ; the lower abdomen and under tail-coverts spotted 
with dusky; axillaries and under wing-coverts white. Total 
length, 17 inches; culmen, 2‘6; wing, 8'8 ; tail, 3-6; tarsus, 
1-25. 
The young male in its first plumage, according to Count 
Salvadori, resembles the old female, but is distinguished by its 
more brightly coloured wings, the bill being pale reddish- 
brown, and the legs and feet flesh-coloured. 
The male, after breeding, passes into a dark plumage, like 
that of the female, but with the crown dark brown. Mr. De 
Winton tells me that the pattern of this summer dress of the 
male is very much like that of the old female, but is much 
more rufous, and the bill becomes orange and black, the feet 
red, and the iris is orange instead of lemor.-grey. All trace 
of the breeding-dress is gone, no bright colours remaining, 
except the blue of the wing-coverts. 
Young in Down. — Nearly uniform above, like the nestling 
Wigeon, with some indistinct paler spots, and a dark brown 
stripe through the eye, as in the Mallard. The bill is not 
widened at the tip, but the spatulated form is very rapidly 
developed. 
Hybrids — .Apparently few instances of the crossing of the 
