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RED-CRESTED DUCK.
Anas rufina, Pa/d.
Puligula rufina, Steph.

Le Canard siffleur huppé

Tue very fine Duck which we have illustrated in the accompanying Plate is as yet but little known as havin;
claim to a place in the Fauna of Great Britain; but the frequent occurrence of both sexes in various parts of
the British Islands sufficiently establishes it as a native species, or at least as much so as many others that
occasionally migrate to this country.

English examples of this beautiful species form a_ part of the collections of the Hon. W. T. 'T. Fiennes
and Mr. Yarrell. The former gentleman possesses a fine female, killed out of a flock of eighteen, on the
Thames, near his own estate at Erith in Kent, and to whose kindness we are indebted for the loan of the
specimen from which our figure was taken.

The Anas rufina is confined to the old continent, where its range is very extensive, as is proved by our
having received it in collections from the Himalaya mountains, and observed it in the collection of Col. Sykes
from the Dukhun, in which localities it is a bird of no rarity; and it also occurs nearly as plentifully in the
eastern portions of Europe, particularly throughout Hungary, Austria, and Turkey. M. Temminck states that
it is a periodical visitor to the shores of the Caspian Sea, but at the same time observes that it never visits the

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open ocean: from these countries it is more or less distributed throughout the whole of the central portions
of Europe. Little is known of the habits of this very interesting species: its form, however, shows it to
belong to the true diving Ducks ; hence we may reasonably conclude that its food consists principally of small
shell fish and molluscous animals, with vegetables and the fry of fishes.

An attentive examination of this bird will lead, we think, to the conviction, that it offers many points of
affinity to the species of the genus Mergus. We need only instance the narrow and compressed form of the
bill towards its extremity, with deeply serrated edges, the disposition of some of its markings, and the silky
texture of the feathers of the head, in corroboration of this fact. The trachea of the male, also, according to
M. Temminck’s description, is not unlike that of the Mlergus merganser, being large immediately below the
upper larynx, becoming suddenly very narrow, and then a second enlargement of the tube, terminating in very
narrow rings. The inferior larynx is formed of two dilatations: that on the left, which is the largest and most
elevated, is formed of osseous ramifications covered by a fine membrane.

The male has the head ornamented with a crest of silky feathers, which, with the rest of the head and the
front of the upper part of the neck, is of a delicate chestnut tinged with vinous; the back and lower part of
the neck, the chest, and under surface, are brownish black ; the back is pale cinereous brown, with a large
spot of white above the origin of each wing; the shoulders, the speculum, the base of the quills, and the flanks,
are white ; the rump and upper tail-coverts black with green reflections ; beak red ; nail white; tarsi and toes
red with black interdigital membranes.

The female wants the fine crest of the male; the top of the head and occiput are dark brown ; cheeks,
throat, and sides of the neck, cinereous ; the whole of the upper surface cinereous brown, with the exception
of the shoulders, which are white, and the operculum, which is dull white terminating in brown ; breast and
flanks yellowish brown ; under surface cinereous ; beak, tarsi and toes, reddish brown.

We have figured a male and female three fourths of the natural size.