160 BULIuETIN 126, UNITED STATES NATIONAL. MUSEUM. 



nesting in trees. Its favorite nesting site is in a fairly large natural 

 cavity in the trunk or large branch of a tree; it has no special pref- 

 erence for any particular kind of tree and not much choice as to its 

 location; it probably would prefer to find a suitable hollow tree near 

 some body of water, but it is often forced to select a tree at a long 

 distance away from it and sometimes very near the habitations of 

 man. The size and depth of the cavity selected vary greatly, and 

 its height from the ground may be anywhere from 3 or 4 feet to 40 

 or 50. If it can not find a natural cavity that suits its taste, the 

 wood duck occasionally occupies the deserted nesting hole of one of 

 the larger woodpeckers, such as the ivory-billed or pileated wood- 

 pecker, or even the flicker; sometimes the former home of a fox 

 squirrel or other large squirrel is selected, in which case the old nest- 

 ing material, dry leaves and soft rubbish, is left in the cavity and 

 mixed with the down of the duck. Such material is often found in 

 the nest of the wood duck, but I doubt if it is ever brought in by the 

 bird. 



A few quotations from the writings of others will give an idea of 

 the variety of nesting sites chosen. Audubon (1840) gives the best 

 general idea of the nesting habits of the wood duck as follows: 



The wood duck breeds in the Mddle States about the beginning of April, in Massa 

 chuaetts a month later, and in Nova Scotia or on northern lakes, seldom before the 

 first days of June. In Louisiana and Kentucky, where I have had better oppor- 

 tunities of studying their habits in this respect, they generally pair about the 1st of 

 March, sometimes a fortnight earlier. I never knew one of these birds to form a nest 

 on the ground, or on the branches of a tree. They appear at all times to prefer the 

 hollow broken portion of some large branch, the hole of our large woodpecker {Picas 

 principalis), or the deserted retreat of the fox squirrel, and I have frequently been 

 surprised to see them go in and out of a hole of any one of these, when their bodies 

 while on wing seemed to be nearly half as large again as the aperture within which 

 they had deposited their eggs. Once only I found a nest (with 10 eggs) in the fissure 

 of a rock on the Kentucky Rivera few miles below Frankfort. Generally, however, 

 the holes to which they betake themselves are either over deep swamps, above cane- 

 brakes, or on broken branches of high sycamores, seldom more than 40 or 50 feet from 

 the water. They are much attached to their breeding places, and for three succes- 

 sive years I found a pair near Henderson, in Kentucky, with eggs in the beginning of 

 April, in the abandoned nest of an ivory-billed woodpecker. The eggs, which are 

 from 6 to 15, according to the age of the bird, are placed on dry plants, feathers, and 

 a scanty portion of down, which I believe is mostly plucked from the breast of the 

 female. 



Wilson (1832) describes a nest which he found, as follows: 

 On the 18th of May I visited a tree containing the nest of a summer duck, on the 

 banks of Tuokahoe River, New Jersey. In was an old grotesque white oak, whose 

 top had been torn off by a storm. It stood on the declivity of the bank, about 20 

 yards from the water. In tliis hollow and broken top, and about 6 feet down, on the 

 soft decayed wood, lay 13 eggs, snugly covered with down, doubtless taken from the 

 breast of the bird. This tree had been occupied, probably by the same pair, for four 

 successive years. 



