body pure white; the sides under the wing and the flanks
barred with narrow ash-grey lines ; legs, toes, and their membranes
bluish and lead-grey. The whole length seventeen
inches and a half; the wing,jrom the carpal joint to the end
of the longest quill-feather, seven inches and three-quartèrs,_
Am adult' male, belonging to the Ornithological Society of
London, which has lived more than two 'years on the canal
in St. James’s., Park, assumes tHé colours, of the plumage of
the adult female before the middle of June, remaining in that
state during the summer, re-assuming his white plumage at
the regular autumn moult. This bird associates constantly
with a female Golden Eye, but not with any other species. j$i
Adult females have the bill "and the irides of' the same
colours as those of the males,-with a black patch at the base
of the.upper mandible; all the top of the.head reddish-
brown ; down the back of . the neck a streak of ash-grey,
which extends to form a collar at the bottom, and spreads
thence over the space before the wings and on the upper part
of the back; centre of the back, the rump, upper tail-coverts*
and tail-feathers greyish-black ; point of-the wing ash-grey;
smaller wing-coverts pure white; greater covers and • secondaries
black* tipped with white as in the male, but - the two
white bands are narrower than those of the male ; primaries
nearly black; tertials lead-grey; . chin, throat, and all the
under surface of the body pure white ; legs, toes, and their
membranes lead-grey. Females are considerably smaller than
males, measuring but. fourteen inches and a half in their whole
length, and but six inches and a half from the point of the
wing to the end of the longest quill-feather.
Y minor males resemble females for the first twelvemonths,
and do not assume their white plumage till their second
autumn moult. Young females have mo black patch on the
side of the head during their first winter; the red colour on
the back of the neck covers a larger space; the white colour
of the smaller wing-coverts is mixed with ash-grey, and the
under surface of the body is of a dull white. Females probably
assume the black patch on the lore, and the more pure
white colour on the wing-coverts at their second autumn
moult.
The trachea of the male Smew is about nine inches in
length, the tube very narrow at the upper part, but increases
gradually till it attains the diameter shown in the figure on
the left side of the vignette below ; the bony rings being
firmly ossified throughout. The labyrinth, it will be observed,
is at right angles with the line of the tube, the spaces
in the bone supplied with tympanic membranes ; the bronchial
tubes short. The figure on the right is from the lower
portion of the windpipe of the female, which preserves the
same simple character as those of the Ducks. Both are here
represented of the natural size.