LIFE HISTOPJES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL 59 



Charles W. Michael (1922), Avho has had exceptional opportunities 

 to study the behavior of harlequin ducks at short range, describes 

 another courtship performance, as follows: 



When the birds appeared in front of camp on the moi'uing of April 12 they 

 were acting strangely. Apparently they were making love. They were bobbing 

 and bowing to one another, swirling around, touching their bills together, and 

 uttering little chatty sounds. One of the moves on the female's part was to 

 slowly submerge her body until just her head and neck appeared above the 

 surface of the water — a bold invitation on her part for attention. In spite of 

 the wanton actions of the female, the love-making failed to reach the climax, 



NestiiKj. — I have never found the nest of the harlequin duck, and 

 I infer that few others have succeeded in doino; so in North America, 

 for surprisingly little is to be found in print about the nesting habits 

 of this species. None of the well-known Alaskan explorers speak of 

 finding nests, except Turner (1886), who says: 



The nest and eggs were not procured, and the only nest I ever saw was near 

 Iliuliuk village, on Unalaska Island. Two immense blocks of rock had become 

 detached from the cliff above, and when they fell their edges formed a hollow 

 place beneath. In under this I discovered a deserted nest, which the native 

 who was with me asserted was that of a bird of this species. The form was 

 similar to that of the nest of C. hyemaUs, and in fact so closely resembled it 

 that I persisted in it being of this bird until the native asked me if I did not 

 know that the oldsquaw did not build in such places. 



Major Bendire wrote to Dr. D. G. Elliot (1898) : 



The harlequin duck undoul)tedly nests both in our mountain ranges in the 

 interior — Rockies and Sierra Nevadas — as well as on many of the treeless 

 islands of the Alaskan Peninsula and the Kurile Islands, and I have not the 

 least doubt that it breeds both in hollow trees, where such are available, and 

 either on the ground or in holes made by puffins where it can find such, not far 

 from water. 



Dr. E. W. Xelson (188T) writes of the breeding haunts of this 

 species : 



Among the host of waterfowl which flock to the distant breeding grounds of 

 Alaska in .spring, this elegantly marked bird is the most graceful and hand- 

 somely colored. As if conscious of its beauty, the harlequin duck leaves the 

 commonplace haunts sought by the crowd of less noble fowls, and along the 

 courses of the clear mountain streams, flowing in a series of rapids into the 

 larger rivers, they consort with the water ouzel, Swainson's thrush, and such 

 other shy spirits as delight in the wildest nooks, even in the remote v»'ilderneis 

 of the far north. Dark lichen-covered rocks, affording temporai-y shelter to 

 the broad-finned northern grayling or the richly colored salmon ti-out as they 

 dart from rapid to rapid, steep banks overhung Ity w^illows and alders, with 

 an occasional spruce, forming a black silhouette against the sky, and a stillness 

 broken only by the voices of the wind and water, unite to render the summer 

 home of these birds, along the Yukon, spots devoted to nature alone, whose 

 solitude is rarely broken, and then only by the soft footsteps of the savage 

 in pursuit of game. 



