WOOD DUCK--SUMMER DUCK. 4] 
tween the eye and bill a deep green,—so gorgeous in 
the sun’s bright rays that it looks highly polished and 
seems to cast off sparks of variegated colors, as it merges 
into purple and runs down his neck, exposing a throat 
of purest whiteness. Then we notice his back of red- 
dish brown; the rump of similar color tinged with 
green; then greenish black, and then his plumage runs 
from dense black to purest white, combining all the 
coloring imaginable, and adding to these tinges light 
and dark shades, and reflected shadows that are simply 
indescribable,—I have often looked at a rainbow, with 
all the perfect and beautiful colors known to Nature, and 
yet it seems to me that a Summer duck has them all. 
Has the reader ever seen the Summer ducks at home 
raising their broods? If you have, and studied them 
unseen, or unheard, watching them in their wild free- 
dom, showing their peculiar traits, tenderly guarding 
their young on a summer's afternoon, while you lay 
full length in the grass, securely hidden, watching with 
growing interest each movement, entranced by the 
scene, completely carried away with the changing 
beauty, and the brilliant plumage of the birds, you will 
know why I admire the Summer duck. 
Their flight through the woods is very swift, and at 
dusk, they move from place to place, darting rapidly 
among the trees. In marshy places, they are found in 
little open spots, around brush piles and muskrat houses. 
They are good eating, but afford me the more pleasure 
seeing them in the woods, and I never shoot them un- 
less there are no other ducks to be found. 
The Wood Duck or Summer Duck; Adult Male :— 
Bill, shorter than the head, deeper than broad at the 
base, depressed toward the end, slightly narrowed to- 
