46 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



inoiTthed, and the last syllable in a high, shrill, clarion tone, may suggest 

 the queer notes to anyone whose ear is familiar with them. Not infrequently 

 the last syllable is left out of the ditty, the bird seeming somewhat in a hurry, 

 or the note becomes a mere nasal, ah, ah, ah, rapidly uttered. 



Doctor Nelson (1887), referring to the notes heard on their breed- 

 ing grounds, writes : 



During all the spring season until the young begin to hatch, the males have 

 a rich musical note, imperfectly represented by the syllables A-l6edle-a, a- 

 Uedle-a, frequently repeated in deep, reedlike tones. Amid the general hoarse 

 chorus of waterfowl at this season, the notes of the old squaw are so harmoni- 

 ous that the fur traders of the Upper Yukon have christened it the " organ 

 duck," a well-merited name. I have frequently stopped and listened with deep 

 pleasure to these harmonious tones, while traversing the broad marshes in 

 the dim twilight at midnight, and while passing a lonely month on the dreary 

 banks of the Yukon delta I lay in my blankets many hours at night and 

 listened to these rhythmical sounds, which with a few exceptions were the 

 only ones to break the silence. These notes are somewhat less common during 

 the day. 



Mr. Ekblaw, in the notes, describes them as follows : 



The call is a loud, ringing* ong, ong-onk that carries far and clear. The call 

 is given with a quick hard recoil of the head with the emission of each syllable, 

 as if requiring considerable force. The vibrant resonance of the call is un- 

 doubtedly due to the peculiar development of the voice box. At the base of 

 the trachea, just at the junction of the bronchial tubes, is a coiled enlargement 

 resembling a mellophone, with a tightly stretched membrane along one side, 

 probably the mechanism by which the volume and quality of the call are 

 produced. 



Oldsqiiaws fly in flocks by themselves, but in their winter haunts 

 they are associated more or less with red-breasted mergansers, 

 scoters, eiders, and goldenej^es, frequenting similar feeding grounds. 

 They are said to show a decided antipathy to cormorants and to 

 leave their feeding grounds when these birds visit them. Mr. Mil- 

 lais (1913) says: 



The principal enemies of the species are the cowardly white-tailed eagles, 

 who kill numbers of half-grown young and wounded birds, the Greenland and 

 Iceland falcons, the three long-tailed skuas, and the great blackback and 

 glaucous gulls. Arctic foxes and polar bears also account for a good many be- 

 fore they can fly. 



Fall. — By the time that the young birds are strong on the wing, 

 during the early part of the fall, both old and young leave their 

 breeding grounds in the north and begin to gather in large flocks 

 on the Arctic coast. John Murdoch (1885) says, of the beginning 

 of the migration at Point Barrow : 



Through .July and August they vary in abundance, some days being very 

 plenty, while for two or three days at a time none at all are to be seen. At 

 this season they fly up and down not far from the shore and light in the sea. 

 Toward the end of August they are apt to form large " beds "" near the station, 

 and this habit continues in September whenever there is sufficient open water. 



