Notes on the Habits of the Breeding Water Birds 21 



on the imid flats clo.ser inshore. This species apparently 

 is becoming more and more uncommon on this coast, and 

 a few years will no doubt see its total disappearance. 



AnJmiga anhinga — Water-Turkey. 



Undoubtedly this curious bird once nested in consider- 

 able numbers in this county. The degree of its abundance 

 now however can best be expressed by the term " spar- 

 ingly and locally distributed." The extensive and splendid 

 system of drainage inaugiirated in the county some years 

 ago has almost completely obliterated the former haunts 

 of the Water-Turkey. As it is eminently a fresh water 

 species, the draining of the ponds and swamps has forced it 

 to seek nesting places elsewhere. T. D. Perry informs me 

 that several 3'ears ago a friend of his secured several sets 

 of eggs near Burroughs, a station on the Atlantic Coast 

 Line railroad eleven miles southwest of Savannah. The 

 birds were nesting in willows growing in an abandoned 

 rice field reservoir. 



The nest of the Water-Turkey is usually placed at low 

 elevations but always over water. The eggs, usually four 

 in number, are deposited the first week in May. According 

 to my observations made at other points on the coast of 

 Georgia, isolated nests are more often found, and even at 

 localities where the species is abundant, the birds do not 

 breed in large colonies, six or eight pairs being the most 

 that I have observed nesting in close proximity. The nest is 

 composed of sticks and is generally of large size, often meas- 

 uring eigliteen inches in diameter. The dei^ression, how- 

 ever, is slight, sometimes imperceptible. Kggs^, bluish 

 white, covered with a rough chalky' or calcareous dei)osit. 

 They measure, on an average, 2.20x1.25. 



These birds spend much of their time feeding in iso- 

 lated ponds in which there is an abundant growth of 

 aquatic vegetation. They prefer such bodies of water that 

 are surrounded by heavy forests, altliough they frequent 

 in considerable numbers the almost treeless fresh water 

 marshes and aban<loned rice fields if containing a good 

 depth of water. I never saw one seek safety by slculking 



