LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL 51 



lying islets are favorite places in the earlier days after their arrival ; but 

 when the water is mostly clear of ice they prefer the rugged shores of the 

 larger islands and shores of the mainland where the reefs and jagged, 

 sunken rocks are to be found ; these birds are rarely to be seen along shingly 

 beaches unless they may be merely passing from one point to another. 



He says of their behavior : 



The males are extremely pugnacious and quickly resent the approach of 

 auotlier male toward their mates. They flop through the water with sur- 

 prising speed toward the intruder with open mouth, uttering a hissing sound, 

 and seize the offender by the body and quickly pluck out a beakful of 

 feathers if the pursued bird does not dive or flutter away. 



Nesting. — Audubon (1840) claims to have found them breeding 

 on islands in the Bay of Fundy; he writes: 



There they place their nests under the bushes or amid the grass, at the 

 distance of 20 to 30 yards from the water. Farther north, in Newfoundland 

 and Labrador, for example, they remove from the sea, and betake themselves 

 to small lakes a mile or so in the interior, on the margins of which they 

 form their nests beneath the bushes next to the water. The nest is composed 

 of dry plants of various kinds, arranged in a circular manner to the height 

 of 2 or 3 inches, and lined with finer grasses. The eggs are five or six, 

 rarely more, measure 2-i5 by Its inches, and are of a plain greenish-yellow 

 color. After the eggs are laid, the female plucks the down from the lower 

 parts of her body and places it beneath and around them, in the same 

 manner as the eider duck and other species of this tribe. 



Dr. C. Hart Merriam (1883) contributes the following: 



While in Newfoundland last winter I learned that these birds, which are 

 here called " lords and ladies," are common summer residents on the island, 

 breeding along the little-frequented watercourses of the interior. I was 

 also informed, by many different people, that their nests were built in hollow 

 trees, like the wood duck's with us. Mr. James P. Howley, geologist of 

 Newfoundland, has favored me with the following response to a letter ad- 

 dressed to him on this subject : " I received your note inquiring about the 

 harlequin duck, but delayed answering it till the arrival of one of our In- 

 dians. It is quite true the birds nest in hollow stumps of trees, usually 

 on islets in the lakes or tarns of the interior. They usually frequent the 

 larger lakes and rivers far from the seacoast, but are also found scattered 

 all over the country." 



Most of the eggs of the harlequin duck in collections came from 

 Iceland, where the species breeds abundantly and where many nests 

 have been found. John G. Millais (1913) gives the following at- 

 tractive quotation from Eeimschneider, illustrating the behavior 

 and nesting habits of this species in Iceland : 



This is the finest of all the species here. Their movements both on land 

 and water are quick, skillful, and graceful ; they run swiftly on dry land, 

 and their gait reminds one very little of the waddling of other ducks, but in 

 walking the small head with its beautiful beak is stretched rather forward, 

 and the long tail pointing downward, with the proportionately slender body 

 and the peculiar coloring, all give this bird a rather foreign appearance, 

 though certainly not an unlovely one. The plumage of this small duck charmed 



