178 BULLETIN 126, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The mother duck has heard Ms noisy approach long since and departed, first carefully 

 spreading ov'er the eggs a heavy blanket taken from the lining of the nest. This 

 consists entirely of down of the most delicate shade of white faintly tinged with gray, 

 which the duck plucks from her own breast. A faint glimpse only can be obtained 

 of the 12 or 14 greenish-drab eggs which seem completely to fill the nest, but let the 

 sun be shining brightly with the dense green nishes for a background, and be sure 

 that fatigue, soaked clothing, mosquitoes, and a dozen other discomforts will in- 

 stantly vanish from remembrance at the eight. 



Mr. Robert B. Rockwell (1911) writes of the nesting habits of this 

 species in the Barr Lake region of Colorado : 



The redheads' nests, like those of the teal, exliibited a wide variation in structure 

 and location. The first two nests were found June 10, 1906. These, containing five 

 fresh eg2s and nine incubated eggs, respectively, were within 2 feet of each other, in 

 burrows in tlie top of a large muskrat house at the edge of a small lake in a sparse growth 

 of cat-tails. The birds had burrowed in about J 8 inches, lined the cavity with down, 

 and deposited the eggs at the end of the cavity. A careful examination of all the 

 muskrat houses seen (and they were so conspicuous tliat in all probability none was 

 overlooked) during the balance of 1006 and the full nesting seasons of 1907 and 1908, 

 failed to reveal any other similarly located nests of this species. 



On May 31, 1907, we found a beautiful set of 11 fresh eggs in a large, bulky nest 

 somewhat resembling an overgrown nest of the coot; but much less compact and not 

 so neatly cupped or lined as the average coot's nest. There was little or no downy 

 lining in the nest which was built in an average growth of cat-tails over about 18 

 inches of water, and some 20 yards from the open water of the lake. There was no 

 apparent attempt at concealment, and it was very conspicuous owing to its large size. 

 The female flushed widely, with a good deal of noise, when we were fully 40 yards 

 from the nest, thus attracting our attention to it. Eight of these eg^ hatched on or 

 about June 20, the remaining three being addled. 



The finest nest of tliis species which came to our attention was found June 15, 

 1907, in a dense cat-tail swamp between two small rush-encircled lakes. It was a 

 beautifully built structure of dead cat-tail blades, mostly broken into small pieces, 

 well built up above the surface of the water (which at this spot was only a few inches 

 deep), deeply cupped, plentifully lined with down, and well concealed in the dense 

 cat- tail growth. 



Eggs. — The redhead incubates on a large set of eggs; my notes re- 

 cord various numbers from 6 to 22, but many of the largest sets con- 

 tain eggs of other species; probably the redhead itself usually lays 

 from 10 to 15 eggs. The redhead also seems to be careless about 

 laying its eggs in other ducks' nests. In North Dakota we found one 

 of its eggs in a ruddy duck's nest and in three cases Ave found three 

 to four of its eggs in the nests of the canvasback, on which the lat- 

 ter duck was incubating. These two species seem to have a peculiar 

 habit of building nests in which large numbers of eggs are laid, by 

 both species, but are apparently not incubated; we found two such 

 nests in Saskatchewan, one of which contained 19 eggs; this set is 

 now in my collection and apparently contains eggs of the redhead, 

 canvasback, and mallard; it was evidently a canvasback's nest orig- 

 inally. Messrs. Willett and Jay (1911) mention a nest found at San 

 Jacinto Lake, California, which contained 27 eggs and which "was 



