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502 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
have been known where the nest was constructed of a few sticks 
Jaid in a fork of the branches: usually, however, the inside of 
a hollow tree is selected for this purpose. On the 18th of May, 
I visited a tree containing the nest of a Summer Duck, on the 
banks of Tuckahoe River, New Jersey. It was an old, gro- 
tesque white oak, whose top had been torn off by a storm. It 
stood on the declivity of the bank, about twenty yards from the 
water. In this hollow and broken top, and about six feet down, on 
the soft, decayed wood, lay thirteen eggs, snugly covered with 
down, doubtless taken from the breast of the bird. These eggs 
were of an exact oval shape, less than those of a Hen; the surface 
exceedingly fine-grained, and of the highest polish, and slightly 
yellowish, greatly resembling old, polished ivory. The egg meas- 
ured two inches and an eighth by one inch and a half. On 
breaking one of them, the young bird was found to be nearly 
hatched, but dead, as neither of the parents had been observed 
about the tree during the three or’ four days preceding, and were 
conjectured to have been shot. 
“This tree had been occupied, probably by the same pair, for 
four successive years, in breeding-time: the person who gave me 
the information, and whose house was within twenty or thirty yards 
of the tree, said that he had seen the female, the spring preceding, 
carry down thirteen young, one by one, in less than ten minutes. | 
She caught them in her bill by the wing or back of the neck, and 
landed them safely at the foot of the tree, whence she afterwards 
led them to the water. Under this same tree,’at the time I visited 
it, a large sloop lay on the stocks, nearly finished: the deck was not 
more than twelve feet distant from the nest; yet, notwithstanding 
the presence and noise of the workmen, the Ducks would not aban- 
don their old breeding-place, but continued to pass out and in, as if 
no person had been near. The male usually perched on an adjoin- 
ing limb, and kept watch while the female was laying, and also 
often while she was sitting. A tame Goose had chosen a hollow 
space, at the root of the same tree, to lay and hatch her young in. 
“‘The Summer Duck seldom flies in flocks of more than three or 
four individuals together, and most commonly in pairs or singly. 
The common note of the Drake is peet, peet ; but when, standing 
sentinel, he sees danger, he makes a noise not unlike the crowing 
