WiLtp-Fow Lt or WitLp-Fow.Lt 
near a house. Hearing of a Duck being seen about 
a certain farmer’s barn, I climbed up on top of his 
hay-mow,—the middle of May, it was—and dis- 
covered a female Wood Duck sitting on ten eggs 
in a hollow she had dug in the hay and lined with 
down from her breast. She went in and out of a 
holesnean the caves. Lhe dtarmer said) that. during 
her laying time she was absent all day, but at night 
she and her mate sat on the ridge-pole of the roof, 
and each morning when he entered the barn to 
milk she flew out, having deposited another egg 
since the evening before. Another equally interest- 
ing bird,—possibly the same one,—made a nest the 
next season im a- barn twe miles from this one, 
ape thes warmer caughtdher ony the nest.  ~Dhe 
eggs are small and rather round, shiny, and of a 
beautiiul) ‘ich ,cream-colors + Ehe;/Wood* Duck 
finishes her laying, in southern New England, by 
the middle of May, the Dusky Duck usually by the 
last of April. 
Altogether, I have found the nests and eggs 
of nineteen species of Ducks and seen the young 
of one other. A very interesting study it has been 
to me, and I look upon these opportunities as an 
inestimable privilege, which it was given not even 
to the great Audubon to enjoy. The breeding 
habits of most of these Ducks in his day were abso- 
lutely unknown, and even to the present little has 
appeared in books about them. 
I have also enjoyed making a study of the 
Ducks that come in the migratory flight to Massa- 
213 
