118 
LONG-TAILED DUCK. 
patch of black on the side of the neck, which ends in dark 
brown ; throat and rest of the neck, white ; crown, tufted, and 
of a pale cream colour ; lower part of the neck, breast, back, 
and wings, black ; scapulars and tertials, pale bluish white, 
long, and pointed, and falling gracefully over the wings ; the 
white of the lower part of the neck spreads over the back an 
inch or two ; the white of the belly spreads over the sides, and 
nearly meets at the rump ; secondaries, chestnut, forming a 
bar across the wing ; primaries, rump, and tail- coverts, black ; 
the tail consists of fourteen feathers, all remarkably pointed, 
the two middle ones nearly four inches longer than the others ; 
these, with the two adjoining ones, are black ; the rest, white ; 
legs and feet, dusky slate. 
On dissection, the intestines w’ere found to measure five feet 
six inches. The windpipe was very curiously formed ; besides 
the labyrinth, which is nearly as large as the end of the thumb, 
it has an expansion immediately above that, of double its usual 
diameter, which continues for an inch and a half ; this is flat- 
tened on the side next the breast, with an oblong window-like 
vacancy in it, crossed with five narrow bars, and covered with 
a thin transparent skin, like the panes of a window ; another 
thin skin of the same kind is spread over the external side of 
the labyrinth, which is partly of a circular form. This singu- 
lar conformation is, as usual, peculiar to the male, the female 
having the windpipe of nearly an uniform thickness through- 
out. She differs also so much in the colours and markings of 
her plumage, as to render a figure of her in the same plate 
necessary ; for a description of which see the following article. 
