"Its extreme northern limit seems to be N. W. Mexico. Its southern range extends to the upper Paraná and Tucuman. It is not uncommon in Paraguay, according to Azara, although not found on the La Plata. It is to be seen usually in pairs or singly, but also in flocks of twenty or thirty. It always roosts in trees, usually resorting to the same trees night after night. The nest, in which from ten to fourteen eggs are deposited, is made in a hole or fork of a large tree at some elevation from the ground. It seeks its food not only in the rivers, but on moonlight nights resorts to the maize and corn-fields, and also plucks up the roots of mandioca.
"The native habitat of the Muscovy Duck was known to some of the earliest writers. The date of its introduction as a domesticated species into Europe and elsewhere does not appear to have been recorded, but doubtless dates back to soon after the Spanish conquests in America."
344. HETERONETTA MELANOCEPHALA (Vieill.).
+Heteronetta melanocephala+, _Scl. et Salv. P. Z. S._ 1876, p. 382. +Anas melanocephala+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 129; _Durnford, Ibis_, 1878, p. 64 (Buenos Ayres).
_Description._--Above deep blackish brown, minutely vermiculated with rufous; head and neck black; narrow terminal band on the secondaries white; beneath dirty white, on the upper breast, flanks, and crissum freckled with rufous; bill blackish, with a basal spot on each side flesh-colour; feet horny brown: whole length 14·5 inches, wing 6·3, tail 2·3. _Female_ similar, but head like the back; cheeks brown, freckled with black, and throat and superciliary stripe whitish.
_Hab._ Southern Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Chili.
This small, obscurely coloured Duck extends from Southern Brazil over the pampas of Buenos Ayres into Chili. Near Buenos Ayres it is scarce. Durnford shot a pair in September 1876, in the reed-beds of Alvear, about twenty miles to the north-west of the city.
+Anas cyanoptera+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 516 (Mendoza, Paraná). +Querquedula cyanoptera+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 129; _iid. P. Z. S._ 1869, p. 160 (Buenos Ayres), et 1876, p. 384; _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 191 (Buenos Ayres), et 1878, p. 400 (Patagonia); _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 625 (Catamarca); _Barrows, Auk_, 1884, p. 273 (Pampas). +Pterocyanea cyanoptera+, _Burm. P. Z. S._ 1872, p. 368.