6 BULLETIN 126, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



"carried them partly in her beak, partly between the beak and the 

 breast." 



Mr. Shaw, however, offers the following evidence to the contrary: 



An interesting occurrence in connection with the breeding of this bird was related 

 to me by Mr. G. H. Moses, who while in camp at Songo River had exceptional oppor- 

 tunity to observe them. In the spring of 1896 a nest was located in a tall hollow 

 tree where it could be readily seen from his camp door. After the young were hatched 

 Mr. Moses saw the mother bird alight in the water at the foot of the stub in which 

 the nest was located and commence to call to the young birds in the nest. Immedi- 

 ately the little ones came tumbling down one after another from the hole in the tree 

 top to the water and at once swam away with their mother. 



Mr. William S. Post (1914) has twice witnessed a similar perform- 

 ance; the following is his account of it: 



It was my good fortune to witness twice the emerging of a young brood of mergan- 

 sers from an extreme situation of this kind, an old pileated woodpecker's hole about 

 40 feet high in the limb of a live elm, standing about 15 feet from the edge of the 

 Tobique River in New Brunswick. 



On June 18, 1910, I fished the famous salmon pool at the fork of the river, and hav- 

 ing incidentally run the canoe close to the shore near where this old elm stands, I 

 landed and rapped several times sharply on the tree with a stick, for I had been told 

 that a wood duck— which on the Tobique means a golden eye— nested there the 

 previous spring. The female merganser immediately flew out and having circled about 

 over the river, aliglited on the water. After assuring myself of the identification, 

 which caused me some astonishment on account of the size of the bird in proportion 

 to the entrance of the hole, I returned to my fishing. 



In a few moments I noticed a small bird drop down apparently from the hole, and 

 in a few more seconds another and then a third . My first thought was that a bank 

 swallow, of which there are many on the river, had flown up near to the hole and 

 down again three times in succession. This caused me to stop fishing and to watch, 

 when to my astonishment a small bird with white breast appeared in the hole, 

 jumped out, and was followed by another, and again another. I then lost no time 

 in reaching a point in the river opposite the tree, where I saw in the water against 

 the bank, swimming around, a brood of 11 young ducks. I was much surprised, as 

 I had been under the impression from what I had read that the old duck would certainly 

 carry down the young from such an inaccessible position, and though I believe the 

 young birds must have landed in the water, I was yet astonished that they could 

 withstand the shock of such a drop, and I presumed that by rapping on the tree I 

 had caused the old bird to leave in such fright that her fear had been communicated 

 to the young and they had followed her example, and that the whole procedure was 

 therefore an unnatural one. 



The clubhouse is situated directly across the river, and on June 12, 1913, two 

 years later, I was sitting on the piazza when my attention was attracted by seeing 

 something large drop from the top of this same elm into the water. I immediately 

 saw that it was the old sheldrake and that she was swimming around close to the shore. 



In a few seconds another dropped from the hole to the ground and I could see it 

 run down the bank and join its mother who was calling loudly and turning round 

 and round in the water. This one was quickly followed by others in succession until 

 there were seven. By this time I had called my guide and in companj of one of the 

 members of the club was crossing the river, provided with trout-landing nets. 



The old bird seeing us immediately swam upstream and around the point with 

 her brood and this was the last we saw of '^er. We landed and stood under the tree 



