124 



WILD AXLMALS OF ULAClEK NATIONAL PARK. 



BuFFLE-iiEAn : Charitoiicfta alheoIa.—Mv. Bryant once found a 

 nest in a stump on a flat of Dutch Creek, Avhich he identified from 

 the eggs as that of a bullle-hoad, but tlie h\vd was not seen and no 

 nests were found "in the marsh bordering the hdce. Mv. Stevenson 

 says the buflle-head is connnon in the park in spi-ing and hite fall, but 



he has never seen either nest 

 or young. His father noAv 

 suspects that it breeds 

 near Sherburne Lake. The 

 mounted bird to be seen at 

 Lewis's came from the Mid- 

 dle Fork of the Flathead. 

 On the St. INIary Lakes, Dr. 

 Grinnell found it, like the 

 Barrow golden-eje, among 

 „,„„,, the last to leave. 



Fig. 31.— Buffle-head. ^ . ., ^, .^.^ ■,, 



On Aprd 21, 1918, Mr. 

 Bailey found many Hocks of buffle-heads on Lake jNIcDonald. usually 

 Avith large flocks or in the great assemblies of mixed species of ducks. 

 At a distance, he says, they looked like pure white balls — snowballs — 

 floating on the water. 



AVesterx Harlequin Duck: nhtrionicus hlstrionlcus faclfcus. — 

 The western form of the little harlequin, whose distribution is given 

 as northwestern America and Siberia, 

 and which spends its summers in rapid 

 mountain streams, is one of the most 

 notable, birds found in Glacier Park. 

 Everything about it is distinctive. The 

 plumage of the drake is bizarre enough 

 to merit the name harlequin, with its 

 gray and rich brown body colors strik- 

 ingly slashed w-ith white, and while the 

 duck, according to the accepted custom in 

 ornithological circles, is as dull colored 

 and inconspicuous as her lord is hand- 

 some and striking, she still has unusual 

 face marks — two white spots on each side 

 of the head that serve to identify her 

 across a lake. 



Still more distinctive are the harlequin's habits, for, like the water 

 ouzel, an habitue of foaming mountain streams, it rides their rapids 

 witji the abandon of enjoyment. On- the rapids connecting the two 

 St. Mary Lakes, in the spring of 1895, Mr. Bailey found eight or 

 ten " diving, bobbing on the rough surface, drifting or darting 

 down over the ra.pids. and then- gathering in a bunch below to flv 



From Handbook of West.rn Birds. L. 

 Fuertes. 



Fig. 32. — We.'^toni harlequin 

 duck. 



