lAVE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL. 25 



down. There were only four ejjgs in the nest, so I left it until the I7th, when I 

 collected them as only one more had been laid. On blowing them, incubation was 

 just perceptible. The nest was in such a dark place that to photograph it was impos- 

 sible without overexposing the outside. The down made the eggs hard to distinguish. 



One of Major Bondire's correspondents, Mr. T. H. P. Lamb, writes 

 that the Cree Indians of Saskatchewan call this bird the "beaver 

 duck" and claim that it lays its eggs in deserted beaver houses, using 

 the entrance under water, also occasionally in old muskrat houses. 

 This seems hardly likely, however. 



Where suitable nesting sites are scarce, the hooded merganser 

 sometimes contends with other species of tree-nesting ducks for the 

 possession of a coveted home and occasionally they share the home 

 between them. Mr. George A. Boardman has been several times 

 quoted as having witnessed such a contest between a wood duck and 

 this species, which resulted in the two females laying in the same 

 nest and occupying it by turns. Mr. George D. Peck (1896) writes: 



T believe it is well known tliat the wood duck often drives the merganser from 

 her nest, and in one nest T found 30 eggs of wood duck and 5 eggs of merganser. The 

 hollow in the tree in whicli the nest was placed was not very large atid the eggs were 

 several layers deep. 



In Maine, Mr. William Brewster (1900) says that several of the 

 rounded, pure white, thick-shelled eggs of the hooded merganser are 

 sometimes included in a set of the green, thin-shelled eggs of the 

 whistler. 



Eggs. — The hooded merganser is credited with laying anywhere 

 from 6 to 18 eggs; probably from 10 to 12 would cover the usual 

 numbers. The eggs are oval or subsphcrical in shape. The shell is 

 thick and hard, smooth and usually quite glossy. The color is pure 

 white, but they are often nest stained. The measurements of 116 

 eggs in various collections average 53.5 by 44.9 millimeters; the eggs 

 showing the four extremes measure 57.5 by 45.2, 55.5 by 45.5, 50 by 

 43, and 50.5 by 41.5 millimeters. 



Mr. William Evans (1891) says that the period of incubation is 31 

 days: it is wholly performed by the female. The male is said by 

 most observers, to desert the female as soon as the eggs are laid, but 

 the following note by Mr. J. W. Preston (1892) is of interest in this 

 connection : 



While eampiiig on Tattle Twin I^akes, northern Iowa, some years since, I noticed 

 a male liooded merganser circling around a grove so often that it seemed ceriain that 

 he was feeding liis mate, wliicii they do at incubating time. I concealetl myself and 

 watched for a long time, and liually was rewarded by seeing tlie fellow lly plump 

 into a hollow in a gigantic oak. It would seem to be a piece of recklessness; cer- 

 tanly, if he had not aimed well he would have suffered for the error. 



Young. — Several writers have written that the female conveys the 

 young in her bill from the nest down into the water, soon after they 



