82 HISTORY OF THE 



at such times, if they can they must be had, whatever may be 

 the price. 



"The Canvas-back will feed readily on grain, especially wheat, 

 and may be decoyed to particular places by baiting them witli 

 that grain for several successive days. Some few years since, a 

 vessel loaded with wheat was wrecked near the entrance to Great 

 Egg Harbor, in the autumn, and went to pieces. The wheat 

 lioated out in vast quantities, and the whole surface of the bay 

 was, in a few days, covered with Ducks of a kind altogether 

 unknown to the people of that quarter. The gunners of the 

 neighborhood collected in boats in every direction, shooting 

 them; and so successful were they, that, as Mr. Beasley informs 

 me, two hundred and forty were killed in one day, and sold 

 among the neighbors at twelve and a half cents apiece without 

 the feathers. The wounded ones were generally abandoned, as 

 being too difficult to come up with. They continued about for 

 three weeks, and during the greater part of the time a continual 

 cannonading was heard from every quarter. The gunners called 

 them Sea Ducks. They were all Canvas-backs, at that time on 

 their way from the north, when this floating feast attracted their 

 attention, and for a while arrested them in their course. A pair 

 of these very Ducks I myself bought in Philadelphia market 

 at the time, from an Egg Harbor gunner, and never met with 

 their superior either in weight or excellence of flesh. When it 

 was known among these people the loss they had sustained in 

 selling for twenty-five cents what would have brought them 

 from a dollar to a dollar and a half a pair, universal surprise 

 and regret were naturally enough excited." 



The nests of this bird are usually found in thick growths of 

 grass, reeds and rushes growing in shallow water. They are 

 made of grasses and material at hand, are built from the ground 

 up, and often quite bulky, and are lined with down. Eggs 

 usually seven or eight, 2.50x1.76; pale grayish olive green; in 

 form, oval to ovate. 



Subgenus FULIGULA Stephens. 



Culmen as long as outer toe with claw; bill wider at end than at base; head 

 and neck black in adult males. {Bidgway.) 



