LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL. 151 



It feeds on tadpoles in spring and leeches in autumn, while, during winter, a dead 

 mouse, should it come in its way, is swallowed witli as much avidity as by a mallard. 

 To these articles of food it adds insects of all kinds, and, in fact, it is by »io niyans 

 an inexpert flycatcher. 



Dr. p. L. Hatch (1892) says that, in Minnesota, the pintails may 

 be found in spring "along the recently opened streams, and in the 

 woodlands where they spend much of their time in search of acorns, 

 insects, snails, and larvae of different kinds, which are under the wet 

 leaves and on the old decaying logs with which the forests abound." 

 Mr. Edward A. Preble (1908) found it feeding on small moUusks 

 (Lymnaea palustris) in northern Canada, and Mr. F. C. Baker (1889) 

 dissected 15 stomachs in Florida, all of which contained "shells of 

 TruncateUa suhcylindrlca (Say)." Mr. Douglas C. Mabbott (1920) 

 sums up the food of the pintail as follows: 



Vegetable matter constitutes about seven-eighths (87.15 per cent) of the total food 

 of the pintail. This is made up of the following items: Pondweeds, 28.04 per cent; 

 sedges, 21.78; grasses, 9.64; smartweeds and docks, 4.74; arrow grass, 4.52; musk graaa 

 and other algae, 3.44; arrowhead and water plantain, 2.84; goosefoot family, 2.58; 

 water lily family, 2.57; duckweeds, 0.8; water milfoils, 0.21; and miscellaneous vege- 

 table food, 5.99 per cent. 



The animal portion, 12.85 per cent, of the food of the pintail was made up of mol- 

 lusks, 5.81 per cent; crustaceans, 3.79 per cent; insects, 2.85 per cent; and miscel- 

 laneous, 0.4 per cent. 



Behivior. — The pintail is built on graceful, clipper lines and is well 

 fitted to cleave the air at a high rate of speed; it has been credited 

 by gunners with ability to make 90 miles an hour; this may be rather 

 a high estimate of its speed, but it is certainly very fleet of wing and 

 surpassed by few if any of the ducks. Mr. Walter H. Rich (1907) says: 



The pintails flight will at once remind the bay gunner of that of the "old squaw," 

 80 well known along the Atlantic coast. The same chain lightning speed and darting 

 and wheeling evolutions are common to both species. 



Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) who had good opportunities for studying 

 this species in Alaska, gives the following graphic account of one of 

 its remarkable fhght performances: 



During the mating season they have a habit of descending from a great altitude at 

 an angle of about 45,° with their wings stiffly outspread and slightly decurved down- 

 ward. They are frequently so high that I liave heard the noise produced by their 

 passage through the air from 15 to 20 seconds before the bird came in sight. They 

 descend with meteorlike swiftness until within a few yards of the ground, when a 

 slight change in the position of the wings sends the birds gliding away close to the 

 ground from 100 to 300 yards without a single wing stroke. The sound produced by 

 this swift passage through the air can only be compared to the rushing of a gale 

 through tree tops. At first it is like a murmur, then rising to a hiss, and then almost 

 assuming the proportions of a roar as the bird sweeps by. 



The pintail can generally be distinguished in flight by its long, 

 slim neck and slender build, which is conspicuous in both sexes; the 



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