Wild-Fowl of Wild-Fowl 



near a house. Hearing of a Duck being seen about 

 a certain farmer's barn, I climbed up on top of his 

 hay-mow, — the middle of May, it was — and dis- 

 covered a female Wood Duck sitting on ten eggs 

 in a hollow she had dug in the hay and lined with 

 down from her breast. She went in and out of a 

 hole near the eaves. The farmer said that during 

 her laying time she was absent all day, but at night 

 she and her mate sat on the ridge-pole of the roof, 

 and each morning when he entered the barn to 

 milk she flew out, having deposited another egg 

 since the evening before. Another equally interest- 

 ing bird, — possibly the same one, — made a nest the 

 next season in a barn two miles from this one, 

 and the farmer caught her on the nest. The 

 eggs are small and rather round, shiny, and of a 

 beautiful rich cream -color. The Wood Duck 

 finishes her laying, in southern New England, by 

 the middle of May, the Dusky Duck usually by the 

 last of April. 



Altogether, I have found the nests and eggs 

 of nineteen species of Ducks and seen the young 

 of one other. A very interesting study it has been 

 to me, and I look upon these opportunities as an 

 inestimable privilege, which it was given not even 

 to the great Audubon to enjoy. The breeding 

 habits of most of these Ducks in his day were abso- 

 lutely unknown, and even to the present little has 

 appeared in books about them. 



I have also enjoyed making a study of the 

 Ducks that come in the migratory flight to Massa- 



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