AMERICAN GOLDEN-EYE 171 



All the Whistlers' nests which I have examined [in Maine] have been 

 placed over water at heights varying from six or eight to fifty or sixty feet 

 and in cavities in the trunks of large hardwood trees such as elms, maples, 

 and yellow or canoe birches. As the supply of such cavities is limited, even 

 where dead or decaying trees abound, and as the birds have no means of enlarging 

 or otherwise improving them they are not fastidious in their choice, but readily 

 make use of any opening which can be made to serve their purpose. Thus 

 it happens that the nest is sometimes placed at the bottom of a hollow trunk, 

 six, ten, or even fifteen feet below the hole at which the bird enters, at 

 others on a level with and scarce a foot back from the entrance, which is 

 usually rounded, and from six to fifteen inches in diameter, but occasionally 

 is so small and irregular that the Whistler must have difficulty in forcing its 

 bulky boily through. . . . 



The eggs are laid on the rotten wood or whatever other debris there may 

 be at the bottom of the cavity. When the set is complete (never before, so 

 far as I have observed) the bird places under, around, and even over the eggs, 

 down plucked from her breast. The quantity of down varies greatly in 

 different nests. The down is very light gray, each down feather having a 

 slightly paler center. 



The number of eggs in a completed set varies greatly. Occasionally there 

 are but five or six, oftener from eight to ten, not infrequently as many as 

 twelve or fifteen, while I once found nineteen, all of which almost certainly 

 belonged to one bird. . . . The whole bottom of the nesting cavity, be it 

 large or small, is usually covered with eggs, and they are often piled in two 

 layers or set on end, and packed so closely that it is as difl&cult to remove the 

 first as to take a book from a tightly filled shelf. 



An occupied nesting cavity can usually be located by the presence 

 of white down on the edges of the aperture or on near-by limbs. 



Bent (1902, p. 170) describes the eggs as different from other 

 ducks' eggs in that they vary from a clear pale malachite green in 

 the lighter specimens to a more olivaceous or pale chromium green 

 in the darker specimens. Seventeen eggs from North Dakota measure 

 in inches 2.37 to 2.58 by 1.66 to 1.77, and average 2.46 by 1.71. 



The ducklings are easily separated from those of other species. 

 "The downy young have the upper parts, as well as a band across 

 the breast and the sides and thighs, dark sooty brown, marked with 

 several ^vhite spots ; chin, throat, and cheeks pure white ; belly grayish 

 white" (Eaton, 1910, p. 210). Unlike the Wood Duck, the young 

 apparently often tumble from the nest instead of being carried to 

 water in the bill of the parent, for Brewster ( loc. cit.) tells of seeing 

 the young tumble out of a nest into the water after being called by 

 their mother. All used their tiny wings freely, beating them con- 

 tinuously as they descended so that they struck the water with very 

 little force. On the other hand George A. Boardman (in Forbush, 

 1912, p. 131 ) states that in Maine he saw a female "Whistler pick up 

 two of her ducklings and carry them, one at a time, across a lake, and 

 he was told by his companion that the mother birds often took their 



