An Island Home of the American Merganser 



By FRANCIS HARPER. Ithaca, N. Y. 

 With photographs by the Author 



IN THE widest waters of Lake Champlain, between two and three miles off 

 Willsboro Point, on the New York side, lies a cluster of islets, which are 

 known as the Four Brothers. On the east, beyond the Vermont shore, 

 looms the huge mass of Camel's Hump, and the high summits of the Adiron- 

 dacks mark an irregular western horizon. All of the islets are tree-grown, and 

 several bear also a thick cover of grass. Their shores are strewn with large and 

 small fragments of shale from the precipitous banks, which, in places, rise to a 

 height of thirty or forty feet. The comparative security afforded by an island 

 home attracts to the Four Brothers, in the breeding season, several species of 

 water- or shore-loving birds; and they also receive protection from a warden, 

 whom the owner of the islands employs during the summer months to guard 

 the birds and their nests from human disturbers and thieving Crows. 



In early July, 1910, when Mr. Clinton G. Abbott and I spent several days 

 at this delightful spot, the scores of Herring Gulls had nearly finished their 

 nesting; and both old and young Spotted Sandpipers fairly swarmed over the 

 rocky shores and on the higher, grassy portions of the islands. But a far more 

 elusive and more imperfectly known species very soon engaged our attention. 

 The zealous guardian of the birds, William E. Ward, told us of an unknown 

 sort of 'Duck' that was nesting within a stone's-throw of his cabin on House 



AMERICAN MERGANSER ON NEST, HOUSE ISLAND. LAKE CHAMPLAIN, N. Y. 



JULY 10, 1910 



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