382 Bird - Lore 



of the keen northeast wind. What other duck of these marshes than the Green- 

 winged Teal or the Pintail could quite hit that pace! She had protected her 

 eight eggs from the rain till the last possible instant, and then made up well 

 for lost time. 



The nest was typical, a rather frail affair, about the size of the crown of 

 a hat, situated in a slight hollow amid not very tall grass and weeds, quite 

 near some low bushes — a mere little rim of dry grass, lined with a moderate 

 amount of grayish down. The eggs were rather small and narrow for the appar- 

 ent size of the bird, and were light buff, with a decided greenish or olive hue. 

 This greenish tinge distinguishes them from the white and creamy eggs of the 

 Gadwall or Widgeon, and from the brown eggs of the Scaup, all of similar 

 size; while their size differentiates them from the eggs of the other ducks of 

 that region. Hence an experienced person may pretty surely identify a Pin- 

 tail's eggs even without seeing the owner. 



The number of eggs in a set is likely to be fewer than in the case of the other 

 ducks mentioned, nor is the maximum as large as with some. I have found 

 probably about thirty nests of the Pintail. In records of twenty-one of these 

 which were accessible, two had five incubated eggs, three had six, six had 

 seven and eight, three had nine, and only one had ten. Its other neighbors very 

 seldom have less than eight, nine to eleven being common. Of large sets, I 

 have found a Golden-eye with sixteen, a Ruddy Duck, Redhead, and Canvas- 

 back each with fifteen, and a Redhead with the surprising number of twenty- 

 two, every one fertile. 



No duck is less particular about nesting near water than this species. 

 Though we may see the pair swimming in the sloughs during the nesting-season, 

 the nest may be almost anywhere — perhaps on a dry island or elevation in 

 a marsh, but, as likely as not, far back on the sun-parched prairie, where I 

 have found nests a mile from the nearest water. 



The Pintail and the Mallard are the earliest of the ducks to lay eggs. The 

 ice does not disappear from those big lakes of the far Northwest till about 

 the middle of May, but by the 25th of June I have caught young PintaUs 

 two months or more old, showing that the eggs were laid as early as the first 

 week in April, when the country was still in the grip of winter. Most sets, 

 however, seem to be laid early in May, though some are not forthcoming 

 till late in the month, very possibly after an early set had been frozen or flooded. 



The downy young are very different in appearance from the young of other 

 river-ducks. Instead of being yellow and brown, they are brownish black, 

 m.ottled with whitish above, and with grayish white on the underparts. 



These earliest broods are able to fly by the middle of July, whereas the 

 late-breeding Scaups and Scoters do not mature their young before the first 

 week of October. By early August there are considerable flocks in the prairie 

 sloughs of young Pintails and Mallards. Having had as yet no experience of 

 man they are then quite tame, and it is great fun to creep close up to them 



