LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL 33 



tures, rushing, flying, quarreling, and filling the air with their musi- 

 cal love notes. If noisy at other times, they are still more so now, 

 vieing with each other to make themselves seen and heard; it is a 

 lively scene, full of the springtime spirit of joy, love, and life. 



The increasing warmth of the April sun and the stimulus of the 

 courtship activities start the restless birds on their spring migration 

 by various routes to their summer homes on Arctic shores. While 

 cruising along the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence on May 

 23, 1909, we saw what was probably the last of the spring migration 

 on the south coast of Labrador ; between the Moisie River and Seven 

 Islands we saw numerous large flocks of from 50 to 200 birds each, 

 j^erhaps 1,000 or 1,500 birds in all. They were noisy and very active, 

 on the water and flying about high in the air, and many seemed to be 

 in summer plumage or changing into it. They were evidently pre- 

 paring for their overland flight to Hudson Bay ; we saw none farther 

 east along the coast, and, from what we could learn from the natives, 

 we inferred that very few migrate around the eastern coast of 

 Labrador and that the bulk of the flight passes overland northwest- 

 ward to Hudson Bay. Oldsquaws no longer breed on the south coast 

 of Labrador, where Audubon found them, and probably very few 

 still breed on the northeast coast; I saw none during the summer of 

 1913 even as far north as Cape Mugford, but I obtained a skin of a 

 male in full breeding plumage from an Eskimo at Okak and saw a 

 set of eggs in Rev. W. W. Perrett's collection, taken at Ramah. 

 Lucien M. Turner's unpublished notes state that " they arrive at the 

 mouth of the Koksoak River as soon as the ice breaks up ; this being 

 a variable date, of course influences the time from the 20th of May to 

 the 10th of June. Their first appearance is usually in the smaller 

 fresh-water ponds and lakes from which the ice earlier disappears, 

 long before the sea ice in the coves and bays begins to move out." 

 Probably these birds reach this portion of Ungava by the Hudson 

 Bay route rather than by an outside route and through Hudson 

 Straits, which are badly icebound at this season. 



There is an extensive northward migration through the interior. 

 E. A. Preble (1908) writes: 



In the spring of 1904 I first saw this species at Fort Simpson May 10, from 

 which date it was common. The birds, usually in small flocks, floated down 

 with the current among the ice floes, occasionally rising and winging their way 

 swiftly upstream to regain lost ground. The males played about on the water, 

 chasing each other and uttering their loud, clear notes, which soon became 

 associated in the mind with the long, cool evenings of the Arctic spring, with 

 the sun hanging low in the northwestern horizon. W^hen they are lightly swim- 

 ming about, the long tails are elevated at an angle of about 45°, and with 

 their striking color pattern the birds present a very jaunty appearance. They 

 are usually rather tame, sometimes rising and coming to meet the canoe, and 

 actually becoming less wild if shot at. When slightly wounded they are 



