38 NOTES ON THE 



southward. According to Mr. Washburn, this species is very 

 common at Lal^e Mille Lacs, and Dead lake. Dr. Hvoslef 

 finds them in February at Lanesboro, Fillmore county, in open 

 places in the Root river. Mr. Edward A. Everett, of Waseca, 

 reports them in January. Indeed, there are no sections where 

 the birds have been looked after by competent observers which 

 do not give reports of the Hooded Merganser. It must not be 

 inferred that they are as numerous a species as some others 

 breeding here, but they may be said to be common residents, 

 large numbers of which go further north still to breed and 

 further south to winter. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTEHS. 



Head with an elongated, compressed, circular crest; anterior 

 extremity of nostril reaching not quite as far as the middle of 

 the commissure; frontal feathers extending nearly as far as 

 half the distance from the lateral feathers to the nostril; the 

 latter much beyond the feathers on the side of the lower mandi- 

 ble. Bill shorter than head. Bill, head, neck, and back, black; 

 center of crest and under parts white; sides chestnut- brown, 

 barred with black; anterior to the wing white, crossed by two 

 black crescents; lesser coverts gray; speculum white with a 

 basel and median-black bar; tertials black, streaked with white 

 centrally. 



Length, 17,50; wing, 8; tarsus, 1.20; commissure, 2. 



Habitat, North America generally. 



ANAS BOSCHAS L. (132.) 



MALLARD. 



When the comfortless days of March have long delayed the 

 departure of the winter, and the great lakes, and the little ones 

 too, begin to show a liquid margin into which sundry reptiles 

 and fishes have come to catch the first warm rays of the ad- 

 vancing sun, we look for the ducks to return, and first of all 

 generally, the Mallards. And should a sharp thaw be attended 

 by a warm rain, we never look in vain. The avaunt couriers 

 consisting of members of this species will more than likely 

 form the largest flock of the entire season, and will come along 

 the cloudy curtains of the horizon after the manner of wild 

 geese, but with less of the wedge-shaped order of flight of the 

 latter and their ostentatious honkings. Sweeping around in 

 circles, the radius of which is many miles in extent, examining 

 the various streams and lakes for the larger openings in the 

 ice, they suddenly dip down to one as if to alight, when as ab- 

 ruptly they rise again and sweep away to another with a few 



