78 BULLETIN 126, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



mallards, baldpates, and ruddies, with a few Canada geese; tbe air 

 seemed to be full of ducks, flying in all directions in bewildering 

 clouds; I have never seen so many ducks before nor since. This was 

 the center of their abundance in one of the greatest duck-breeding 

 resorts I have ever seen. Probably all of the ducks had arrived on 

 their breeding grounds at that time, but evidently many of them had 

 not mated and others had not finished laying. 



On June 17, 1905, Mr, H. K. Job and I made a careful census of 

 the ducks breeding on the island, referred to above, by dragging a 

 long rope over it as thoroughly as ^ve could and by noting and record- 

 ing the nests found by flushing the birds. The island was about 300 

 or 400 yards in length by about 100 yards in width, fairly high at one 

 end and everywhere covered Avith a thick growth of grass, through 

 which Avere scattered on the higher portion numerous small clumps 

 and in some places large patches of rose bushes, offering ideal con- 

 ditions as a breeding ground for ducks. There were several small 

 ponds near the center of it lined with fringes of cat-tails and bull- 

 rushes. On the lower portion of the island the grass was shorter, and 

 where it extended out into a point the ground was bare. A colony 

 of common terns occupied this point, which was also the favorite re- 

 sort of a flock of white ])elicans, which may have bred here later in 

 the season. Marbled godwits, Wilson phalaropes, and spotted sand- 

 pipers were breeding here, as well as western savanna sparrows. 



A pair of crows had a nest in the only tree on the island, a small 

 willow, and they must have fared sumptuously on stolen duck's eggs. 

 A pair of short-eared owls had a nest on the island containing young 

 in various stages of growth. We were unable to drag the whole 

 island, as the rose bushes were too thick in many places, but in the 

 course of two hours' M'ork we recorded 61 nests, as follows: Mallard, 

 5 nests; gadwall,23 nests; baldpate, 3 nests; green-winged teal, 2 nests; 

 blue-winged teal, 10 nests; shoveller, 7 nests; pintail, 8 nests; and lesser 

 scaup duck, 3 nests. The ducks were identified to the best of our abil- 

 ity by eyesight; the female gadwalls and baldpates were very difficult 

 to distinguish and there may have been more of the latter than we 

 supposed, but certainly both the species were nesting there, as we saw 

 a number of males in the small pondholcs; the green-winged teals' 

 nests were identified by seeing the female join a male of that species. 

 We started a number of ducks, mostly pintails, where we failed to 

 find nests, which probably meant broods of young and which were not 

 counted. Most of the sets were incomplete or fresh, indicating that 

 the ducks were only just beginning to lay; we therefore must have 

 overlooked a great many nests, where the eggs were covered and no 

 ducks flushed, as we found a number of such nests by accident. 

 Considering these facts, making allowance for the unexplored parts 

 of the island and judging from the immense numbers of ducks that 



