LONG-TAILED DUCK. 
235 
The length of this species is twenty-two inches ; 
extent, thirty inches ; bill, black, crossed near the 
extremity by a band of orange ; tongue, downy ; iris, 
dark red ; cheeks and frontlet, dull dusky drab, passing 
over the eye, and joining a large 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 were 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 flattened 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 singular conformation is, as usual, peculiar to the 
male, the female having the windpipe of nearly an 
uniform thickness throughout. She differs also so 
much in the colours and markings of her plumage as to 
render a separate description of her necessary ; for 
which see the following article. 
