26 NOTES ON THE 



the morning or towards evening, as they are engaged in the 

 structure of their nests. These are constructed of such mater- 

 ials as abound about them, usually reeds, rushes, swamp 

 grasses, and moss, and are woven with considerable skill. 

 They are quite uniformly placed on floating debris, consisting 

 of similar materials to that employed in the structure of the 

 nests, although placed occasionally on a buoy of wood or bark. 

 The water in which these masses float is commonly from three 

 to four feet in depth, and completely surrounded by reeds and 

 wild rice. Breeding in communities, it is no uncommon thing 

 to find half a dozen nests very near to each other upon the 

 same float, and a single nest on one so small as to forbid the 

 presence of another. Considerable numbers build by the 25th 

 of May, as I have eggs I obtained before the end of the month, 

 but the larger part of them are deposited after the first of 

 June. 



They lay from two to three eggs — occasionally but one — of a 

 smoky-yellow color, thoroughly splotched all over with dark, 

 umber-brown, more thickly in an undefined ring around the 

 larger end. 



During the breeding period very little is seen of them, but 

 when the young are sufficiently developed to fly, they may be 

 seen in great numbers flying over not only these reedy marshes, 

 ponds and lakes, but more especially over the dry pastures, 

 hayfields and wheatfields, where insects and grasshoppers are 

 most abundant. 



Silent, and apparently without suspicion, flitting here and 

 there like the swallows, often very near without seeming to 

 see one observing them, although he may have a gun in his 

 hand at the time, they spend most of their time in quest of 

 food — that universal stimulus to motion for all animate nature. 

 Few are seen in the country later than the 15th of August, 

 and then invariably it is the adult plumage. I have no record 

 of their presence later than the 19th of August. 



In his Birds of the Northwest, p. 708, Coues says: "They 

 (the eggs) had to be closely looked after, for they were laid 

 directly on the moist matting, without any nest in any instance." 

 This observation having been made along the borders of my 

 special survey, and in the month of June, by so eminent a 

 naturalist, surprised me greatly until I received a communi 

 cation from Mr. E. W. Nelson, of Chicago, now of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, who assured me that he had observed the 

 same thing in Cook county, where he resided, but only when 



