SUMMER DUCK. 
105 
the eye ; the white collar is bounded below with black ; breast 
dark violet brown, marked on the fore part with minute triangu- 
lar spots of white, increasing 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, re- 
flecting green ; scapulars black ; tail tapering, dark glossy green 
above, below dusky ; primaries dusky, silvery hoary without, tipt 
with violet blue ; secondaries greenish blue, tipt with white ; wing- 
coverts violet blue tipt with black ; vent dusky ; legs and feet yel- 
lowish red, in some pale yellow ochre, webs dusky ; 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 is between seventeen and eighteen inches in length, 
and has the head slightly crested, crown dark purple, behind the 
eye a bar of white ; bill white in the centre, largely l idged and 
margined with dark horn color ; irides dark reddish hazel ; eyelids 
bright yellow ; chin, and throat for two inches, also while ; head 
and neck dark drab ; breast dusky brown, marked with large tri- 
angular spots of white ; back dark glossy bronze brown, with some 
gold and greenish reflections. Speculum of the wings nearly the 
same as in the male, but the fine penciling of the sides, and the long 
hair-like tail-coverts, are wanting; the tail is also shorter; legs and 
feet pale greenish olive, webs dusky. 
2 D 
VOL. VUI. 
