LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL. 177 



bewildering, especially whenever one of the marsh hawks sailed over the slough, 

 which sent them all up into the air at once, cackling and squeaking, hovering and 

 circling about for a few moments, and then settling down into the reeds again. 

 Redheads were filing back and forth across the slough, Idlldeers, willets, and Wilson 

 phalaropes were flying about the shores, and long-billed marsh wrens were singing 

 among the flags on all sides. While wading along a shallow ditch through a small 

 patch of last year's flags, a big brown duck sprang into the air from a clump of tall 

 reeds, and, after a short search, I found my first nest of the redhead, well concealed 

 among the reeds. It was a handsome nest, well made of dead reeds, deeply hollowed 

 and lined with broken pieces of the reeds mingled with considerable white down, 

 especially around the upper rim; it measured 16 inches in diameter outside and 8 

 inches inside, the upper part of the rim being about 10 inches above the water; it 

 rested on a bulky mass of dead reeds built up out of the shallow water, the whole 

 structure being firmly held in place by the live growing reeds about it. It held 

 11 handsome eggs, in which incubation had just begun. I could not photograph 

 this nest, as it was raining hard, but I collected the nest and eggs, which are now in 

 my cabinet. 



We found the redheads breeding in two large, deep sloughs in Steele County. 

 One of these, in which we found four nests of the redhead, is illustrated in the photo- 

 graph. In the open part of this slough, shown in the foreground, the water was too 

 deep to wade, but, in the southern end of the slough, shown in the background, the 

 water was seldom deeper than the tops of our hip boots, and in many places quite 

 shallow. The principal growth was the tall slough reeds, quite thick in some places, 

 and often as high as our heads, with numerous thick patches of tall cat-tail flags and 

 several patches of the "queen of the prairie" reeds growing in the drier portions. 

 The redheads' nests were all located in the shallower parts of the slough where the 

 reeds and flags were growing less thickly. 



The redheads' nests found here on June 10 contained 6, 10, 14, and 16 eggs, re- 

 spectively, none of which were collected. The latter of these is shown in the photo- 

 graph, it was located in the center of a tangled mass of broken-down dead flags, in a 

 nearly dry, open space, near the edge of the slough, well concealed from view by the 

 arching over of the dead flags above it. The bird proved to be a close sitter, as we 

 twice flushed her from the nest. We tested one of the eggs and found it far advanced 

 in incubation. 



Mr. J, H. Bowles (1909) gives the following attractive account of 

 the nesting habits of the redhead in Washington : 



They are essentially lovers of shoal bodies of fresh water, and in summer resort in 

 considerable numbers to the larger lakes of central Washington for the purpose of 

 rearing their young. One of their favorite breeding grounds may be found at Moses 

 Lake, a beautiful body of water situated in the north central part of the State. At 

 this place, in the summer of 1906, it is certain that at least 150 pairs remained to 

 nest. Paddling our canoe along the margin of the lake, close to its heavy fringe of 

 cat-tails, we would flush a pair or two at intervals of every hundred feet. As is cus- 

 tomary wdth all waterfowl during the nesting season, they were remarkably tame, 

 allowing such a close approach as to give an excellent view of the handsome nuptial 

 plumage of the male. 



Leaving the canoe and plunging at random into the sea of rushes, fortune may 

 favor us sufficiently to permit of our happening upon one of their nests. This is a 

 heavy, deep basket of rushes placed in the thickest of the growth, either upon a small 

 muddy island left by the receding water, or built up amongst the flags upon the mat- 

 ted dead stems which cover the surface of the lake in these places. It is a structure of 

 such beauty as to cause the bird student to pause almost breathless upon its discovery. 



