156 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



food, unlike all other young ducks, which take their food from the 

 surface for several weeks." 



G. S. Miller, jr. (1891), published the following observations on 

 the behavior of young ruddy ducks on Cape Cod, Massachusetts : 



On August 11 I found four young, accompanied by the female parent, on a 

 large shallow pond which lies between the towns of Truro and Provincetown. 

 At the approach of my boat the old bird left her yoiang and joined five other 

 adults which were resting upon the water half a mile away ; the young ones, 

 however, were too young to fly, and so attempted to escape by swimming and 

 diving to the shelter of a cat-tail island near which they happened to be when 

 surprised. Two of them reached this place of safety, but the others were 

 secured after a troublesome chase. They were very expert divers, remaining 

 beneath the surface for a considerable length of time, and on appearing again 

 exposing the upper part of the head only, and that for but a few seconds. 

 As the water just here happened to be filled with pond weed {Potaniogeton 

 pectinatiis and P. perfoliatus) , it was not difficult to trace the motions of the 

 l>irds when beneath the surface by the commotion which they made in passing 

 through the thick masses of vegetation. The flocli of old birds contained at 

 least two adult males, which were very conspicuous among their dull-colored 

 companions. They were all veiy shy, so that it was impossible to approach 

 to within less than 100 yards of them. The adults, as well as the two remain- 

 ing young, were seen afterwards on several visits to the pond. 



Plumages. — The downy young, when first hatched is a large, fat, 

 awkward, and helpless looking creature, covered with long coarse 

 down, which on the uj)per parts is mixed with long hair-like fila- 

 ments, longest and coarsest on the rump and thighs. The upper 

 2")arts are " drab " or " hair brown," deepening to " Front's brown " 

 or " mummy brown " on the crown and rump, with two whitish rump 

 patches, one above each thigh; the brown of the head extends below 

 the eyes to the lores and auriculars, a broad band of grayish white 

 separating this from a poorly defined malar stripe of " drab " ; the 

 under parts are mostly grayish white, shading into the darker colors 

 on the sides and into an indistinct collar of " drab " on the lower neck. 

 The colors fade out paler with increasing age. The young bird is 

 almost fully grown before the juvenal plumage is complete; it comes 

 in first on the flanks, scapulars and head; the down is replaced last 

 on the center of the belly, back, and rump. In this plumage the 

 upper parts are dark brown, " clove brown " or " bone brown " on 

 the back and " blackish brown " on the crown ; the feathers of the 

 mantle are indistinctly barred, tipped, or sprinkled with fine dots 

 of pale buffy shades; and the crown feathers are tipped with 

 brownish buff. The flank feathers are more distinctly barred with 

 dusky and grayish buff; the breast feathers are dusky, broadly 

 tipped with buff and the rest of the plumage is more or less mottled 

 with dusky, grayish, and buffy tints. There is no clear white on 

 the side of the head which is mottled with dusky, the mottling form- 

 ing a more or less distinct malar strip. The sexes are alike in this 



