234 Naturalist at Large 



nesting in August and the fact that it is apparently more 

 abundant at that time. I suspect that this simply means 

 there was more open water then and so both masked ducks 

 and ruddy ducks were seen more frequently. 



I asked Percy to transcribe the notes which he had made 

 during our Cuban trip. He answered: — 



According to local information, the masked ducks 

 are much less secretive in late summer and autumn when 

 the lake is higher and provides less cover from view; 

 in such conditions we were told that the masked ducks 

 flew a good deal of their own accord, especially early 

 and late in the day, and experience elsewhere with these 

 birds did not suggest that they were difficult to flush, 

 though they rarely flew farther than the nearest patch 

 of cover. On the other hand local hunters agreed that, 

 while the masked ducks took to wing quite frequently, 

 the ruddy ducks never did so under any circumstances. 

 This, if true, is remarkable, but it is possible that the 

 Cuban race, being entirely stationary, may have de- 

 veloped a more skulking habit than that of the migra- 

 tory race in Canada and the United States. (It certainly 

 is a fact that the Erismaturas of the high Andean lakes 

 are so unwilling to fly as to give an impression of in- 

 capacity to do so, for during several consecutive 

 months of constant association with them I never saw 

 one on the wing, although we frequently tried to in- 

 duce them to fly.) 



In Cuba the ruddy ducks were in full breeding dress 

 on the thirtieth of January 1921, and were actually 

 breeding on that date, whereas the male masked ducks 



