. The sportsman's British bird book . ers are black ; the long scapulars,inner secondaries, outer tail-feathers, and the whole of the under-partsare white: while the wing-coverts are brownish black. In the non-breeding dress, which appears to be worn only for a short .season insummer, the region round the eye is buff and white, and the rest of the LONG-TAILED DUCK ;25 plumage dark brown, with broad rufous edges and dark middles tothe scapulars and secondaries. There is, however, no hard-and-fastline between the breeding and non-breeding dresses, which arc con-nected by insensible gradations. I
. The sportsman's British bird book . ers are black ; the long scapulars,inner secondaries, outer tail-feathers, and the whole of the under-partsare white: while the wing-coverts are brownish black. In the non-breeding dress, which appears to be worn only for a short .season insummer, the region round the eye is buff and white, and the rest of the LONG-TAILED DUCK ;25 plumage dark brown, with broad rufous edges and dark middles tothe scapulars and secondaries. There is, however, no hard-and-fastline between the breeding and non-breeding dresses, which arc con-nected by insensible gradations. In the duck the prevailing tone isdark brown above and white below, but there is a white stripe above theeye, the neck is white on the sides, and the cheeks and upper portionof the breast are ashy brown. Young birds of both sexes are like thefemale ; and the duckling is dark brown above, with a light ring atthe base of the beak and a similar ring round the eye, and greyishwhite beneath. The length of the drake, to the tips of the long. HE ROWLAND WARD STUDIOS LONG-TAILED DLXK (MALE) middle tail-feathers, is 22 inches, but its weight is only i^ lbs. oran ounce or so more. Breeding throughout the Arctic regions of both hemispheres, thelong-tailed duck wanders as far south in winter as the northern coastof the Mediterranean, the Caspian sea, and China and Japan. To theBritish Islands it is a winter-visitor, more abundant in the Hebridesand the north of Scotland than farther south, and in England lessunfrequent on the eastern than on the opposite coast. iVpparently theonly evidence of its having ever laid in the British Islands rests on apair of eggs obtained in Shetland as those of the calloo, by which namethe bird is known in those remote isles. In the Faroes, however, itprobably nests not unfrequently, while Iceland is one of its regularbreeding-places. Immature birds, which in neither sex develop thelong middle tail-feathers of the adult drake, are not uncommonly 326 DUCK GROUP
Size: 2199px × 1136px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorlydekkerrichard184919, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900
