JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL vSOCIETY. 6 1 



of all Maine's ducking grounds, Merrymeeling Bay. There was 

 scarcely a breath of air stirring, certainly not enough to cause even 

 a ripple upon the surface of the water, which was like a mirror. 

 The tide was about half ebb, and in the bright sunlight the bottom 

 of the bay, with its vegetable growth, was plainly visible. After a 

 few moments of listless waiting and watching for something in the 

 nature of web-foote^^l game to turn up, a bunch of three Pintails, or 

 Gray Ducks, suddenly dropped out of the sky from somewhere, and 

 we sculled them without difficulty, as they are a comparatively un- 

 suspecting bird when first arriving from the North. 



"I stopped only two, however, owing to a "breakdown" after the 

 first shot, one killed outright, the other, a V)ig drake, being hard 

 hit and with one wing broken. Before the latter could be shot over, 

 he made a dive with considerable difficulty and disappeared from 

 view. We waited perhaps half a minute for him to appear again, 

 but not doing so, we paddled to the spot where we found the water 

 thereabouts to be scarcely three feet deep, and the bottom to be 

 thickly covered with various kinds of lily pads and grasses. A few 

 moments of careful search and the duck was di.scovered on the bot- 

 tom, grasping with its bill the tough stem of a cowslip. The body 

 of the bird floated upward posteriorly, somewhat higher than the 

 position of the head, and the long tail feathers were a foot or more 

 nearer the surface than the former. The bird's feet were out- 

 stretched, but he was motionless until molested, then he kicked 

 and fluttered vigorously, all the time retaining his hold upon the 

 bottom, and it required considerable force to break him away from 

 his queer anchorage. 



I regret my inability to wholly satisfy the general curiosity as to 

 the final outcome of this strange habit. Whether wounded Ducks 

 retain their hold in a death grip after life is extinct, or whether it 

 relaxes with death and the body floats to the surface, I am unable to 

 state with certainty, but I surmise from the experience of other ob- 

 servers as well as myself that the former is the case, and that not until 

 sometime after death do the muscles relax sufficiently to enable the 

 action of the water to free the body from its hold on the bottom. 



Perhaps other observers, who have made a more careful study 

 of this phenomenon, will enlighten us upon this important point. 



