LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL. 71 



dragon-fl}'- nymphs (rarely adults), water bugs, caddis larvae, and a 

 variety of beetles and Hies, including horsefly larvae. Crawfish and 

 small fishes are eaten in small quantities. Of the vegetable food he 

 says: 



Grasses are the most importaut (>lemeut of the vegetable food of thesoutlieru black 

 duck, forming almost half of it. Frequently the rootstocks are dug up and devoured, 

 and some stems and leaves are eaten. Of the grass seeds consumed, cultivated rice 

 is most important. Most of that found in tlie stomachs was waste, being taken in 

 winter, and as it included red rice, some good was done by eating it. However, as 

 the southern black duck spends the summer in the country where much rice is grown, 

 it lias tlie opportunity of feeding upon the crop in the younger and more appetizing 

 stages. It is said to do this sometimes to a destructive extent. However, the game 

 value of the duck makes it undesirable to take aggressive measures against it on 

 behalf of the rice crop. A toll large enough, if not too large, is taken of the birds 

 during the hunting season. 



Next to grasses the seeds of smartwceds are preferred. They form almost a tenth 

 (9.54 per cent) of th<- total diet. No fewer than 800 seeds of prickly smartweed 

 {Polygonum sayitkttum) were fciken from a single stomach. The seeds and tubers of 

 sedges compose the next largest item, namely, 6.34 per cent. Seeds of water lilies 

 and coon tail make up 3.11 per cent, and seeds, stems, and foliage of pondweeds and 

 widgeon grass, 1.6 per cent. Other items of vegetable food worth mentioning are 

 ba^^berries and seeds of buttonbusli. 



Behavior. — I can not find much published on the habits of the 

 Florida duck, in all of which it undoubtedly closely resembles the black 

 duck. It is, of course, a surface feeder, but that it can dive, if hard 

 pressed, I have learned to my sorrow in attempting to chase wounded 

 birds; I have seen one dive and swim for several yards under water 

 until it could find concealment among aquatic vegetation, where it 

 remained hidden, probably with its bill protruding, and was never 

 seen again. In flight, appearance, and behavior it is much like the 

 black duck, the white lining of its wings being very conspicuous, 

 but it is not nearly so shy as the northern species, perhaps because 

 it is less hunted. 



Game. — It is not an important factor as a game bird, because it is 

 not migratory. It inhabits chiefly the less frequented and most 

 inaccessible places in Florida, seldom visited by sportsmen. What 

 few sportsmen visit its haunts usually come in the winter, when tiiis 

 species is widely scattered, or in the spring, when it is mated and 

 breeding, and their time is usually fully occupied with hunting other, 

 more numerous, sjiecies which offer better return for their trouble. 

 For these reasons I have never heard of the Florida duck being sys- 

 tematically hunted and I doubt if its numbers are being seriously 

 reduced except where its haunts are becoming thickly settled, culti- 

 vated, or drained. It is the same with them as with many of the 

 western ducks, civilization and agriculture are killing them off faster 

 than gunpowder. 

 ir)74iv-2:j — <j 



