STJMMER DUCK. 
123 
The wood duck is nineteen inches in length, and two feet 
four inches in extent ; bill, red, margined with black ; a spot 
of black lies between the nostrils, reaching nearly to the tip, 
which is also of the same colour, and furnished with a large 
hooked nail; irides, orange red; front, crown, and pendent 
crest, rich glossy bronze green, ending in violet, elegantly 
marked with a line of pure white running from the upper man- 
dible over the eye, and with another band of white proceeding 
from behind the eye, both mingling their long pendent plumes 
with the green and violet ones, producing a rich effect ; cheeks 
and sides of the upper neck, violet ; chin, throat, and collar 
round the neck, pure white, curving up in the form of a cres- 
cent, nearly to the posterior part of the eye ; the white collar 
is bounded below with black ; breast, dark violet brown, marked 
on the fore part with minute triangular spots of white, increa- 
sing in size until they spread into the white of the belly ; each 
side of the breast is bounded by a large crescent of white, and 
that again by a broader one of deep black ; sides, under the 
wings, thickly and beautifully marked with fine undulating 
parallel lines of black, on a ground of yellowish drab ; the 
flanks are ornamented with broad alternate semicircular bands 
of black and white ; sides of the vent, rich light violet ; tail- 
coverts, long, of a hair-like texture at the sides, over which 
they descend, and of a deep black, glossed with green ; back, 
dusky bronze, reflecting green ; scapulars, black ; tail, taper- 
ing, dark glossy green above ; below, dusky ; primaries, dusky, 
silvery hoary without, tiptwith violet blue ; secondaries, green- 
ish blue, tipt with white ; wing-coverts, violet blue, tipt with 
black ; vent, dusky ; legs and feet, yellowish red ; claws, strong 
and hooked. 
The above is as accurate a description as I can give of a 
very perfect specimen now before me, from which the figure 
in the plate was faithfully copied. 
The female has the head slightly crested ; crown, dark 
purple ; behind the eye, a bar of white ; chin and throat, for 
two inches, also white ; head and neck, dark drab ; breast, 
dusky brown, marked with large triangular spots of white; 
