204 BULLETIN 126, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



were laying in one nest. Stuart Baker speaks of 40 eggs as found in one nest, but 

 gives no details. 



Young. — The incubation period is somewhat variable, lastingfrom 23 to 28 days. A. 

 female sits very close, and only deserts her nest in presence of urgent danger. 

 She plucks her breast of the dark-gray down, and surrounds her eggs with it, as well 

 as covering them with it when necessity compels her to obtain some food. When 

 the young escape from the eggs, they follow the mother at once to the water, and 

 crowd very closely round her as she swims. If disturbed by man, she will fly a 

 short distance and dive, when the young, even if very small, at once imitate her 

 movements. In a very few days the young are expert divers. During the first days 

 of life the young are largely fed by the mother, or, to speak more correctly, have 

 food placed before them by the parent, who obtains it from the bottom and then 

 breaks it up, when it is at once swallowed by the the hungry brood. All the time 

 she is so engaged the latter are busy catching flies and diptera on the surface as they 

 swim along. 



Young tufted ducks begin to dive very soon after they enter the water. Mr. 

 Wormaid allows his young birds to enter a pond and seek for food as soon as they 

 are hatched. As instancing their lack of knowledge in the art of diving and their 

 quick acceptance of this method of gaining their food, Mr. J. Whitaker tells me the 

 lollowing interesting fact, which he noticed at Rainworth in the summer of 1912. 

 A female tufted duck led her bunch of young ones which had just been hatched, to 

 the middle of the pond. She then dived immediately; the young rushed in every 

 direction on the surface of the water, evidently under the impression that they had 

 lost their mother. She reappeared in a minute, however and all the brood hurried 

 to her side. 



At the next dive they did not appear to be so frightened, but looked about waiting 

 for her reappearance. The third time she dived two of the young ones copied her 

 movements, and in a very short period the whole of the family were diving with 

 their mother in quite professional fashion. This little incident shows how quickly 

 education may be completed in birds whose instincts naturally trend in certain 

 directions. 



Food. — When diving for its food the tufted duck makes a full seuucircle with the 

 head and neck, and, giving a vigorous kick, passes quickly out of sight, leaving a 

 boil on the troubled waters. It remains below the water from a few seconds to half 

 a minute, and finds most of its food on the bottom. Like most of the fresh-water 

 diving ducks, it will take quantities of food on the surface such as flies, diptera, and 

 duckweed, of which it is especially fond. Even when quietly preening on shore I 

 have seen a tufted duck dash at and swallow a small frog that incautiously sprang 

 into a shallow beside it. Most authorities speak of the food as being entirely animal, 

 but this is not the case. Dresser, however, does not make this mistake, and correctly 

 states that it will eat roots, seeds, and the buds of aquatic plants. I have never 

 seen the tufted duck actually feed on land, for we must not regard habits developed 

 in confinement as natural. Its chief food consists of aquatic animals of various kinds, 

 fresh-water mussels and snails, insects, frogs, and tadpoles. Various tufted ducks 

 that I have kept in confinement caught quantities of flies, water beetles, small fish, 

 and ate large quantities of pond weed. They can, however, be easily "fed off" on 

 tograin. "In the stomachs of some killed in Bavaria," says Naumann, "Jackelfound 

 fish spawn, a grass frog {Rana esculenta), mussels {Pisidum fontinale), the larvae of 

 Phryganea and Ephemera, and the seeds of Polygonum amphibium, persicaria and 

 Lapathifolium, Rumex, and Potamogeton." The stomachs of tufted ducks generally 

 contain a quantity of sand, fine shell, or small stones. 



Behavior. — Unless the sun is shining, when the snow-white flanks of the males 

 appear bright and glistening, the appearance of this duck is very black. It swims 

 low in the water, with the head well sunk between the shoulders. The tail is usually 



