THE GADWALL. 767 
killed until the ist of March, which is nothing more nor less than ‘killing the 
goose that laid the golden egg.’ The sportsman would be not one particle 
more short-sighted if he were to go to the nesting grounds and kill the mother 
ducks as they are hatching the eggs in the nests. 
West of the Cascades the nest is often built at a considerable distance 
from water, a nest found near Spanaway Lake serving for an example. It 
was situated one hundred and fifty yards from the lake under a pile of brush 
on a bushy hillside. The duck, when flushed, tumbled along the ground, 
feigning a broken wing, but she soon flew quacking to the lake, where she was 
very shortly joined by the drake. Other nests are built in the heavy fir timber, 
being placed at the base of a giant tree in exactly the same manner as nests of 
the Sooty Grouse. East of the Cascades they frequently nest on the reed- 
covered islands in the lakes, often only a few feet from the water’s edge. In 
such locations the bird seldom feigns being wounded, taking wing instead as 
soon as she leaves the nest. 
Mallards return to the same nesting locality year after year and become 
greatly attached to it, as the following incident will show. In clearing a piece 
of heavily timbered land for cultivation, a female Mallard was flushed from 
her nest of eleven heavily incubated eggs, which, of course, were destroyed. 
The clearing ended, perhaps a hundred yards further on, in a dense tangle of 
brush and fern, and in this haven of refuge the mother duck established her- 
self, and was found some three weeks later with a second nestful of eggs. 
This was a duplicate of her first, and in four weeks time she was successful in 
bringing out eleven fine young ducklings. 
J. H. Bowtes. 
No. 308. 
GADWALL. 
A. O. U. No. 135. Chaulelasmus streperus (Linn.). 
Synonym.—Gray Duck. 
Description.—4dult male: Head and upper neck buffy, spotted or streaked 
with dusky ; top of head darker brownish; breast and lower neck all around dusky 
and white, each feather with five to eight concentric half-rings of alternating col- 
ors, presenting a handsomely scaled appearance; sides, back and scapulars similar- 
ly varied with dusky and white, buffy, or ochraceous-white, in semi-concentric, 
zigzag, or fine, wavy lines; the poste:ior inner scapulars, not thus marked, dull 
cinnamon-brown, darker centrally and edged with lighter, lanceolate; lower back 
dusky, becoming velvety black on upper tail-coverts and around on sides of cris- 
sum; middle wing-coverts bright chestnut; the lesser dull brownish gray, the 
greater velvety black; speculum white, rather narrowly, the outer secondaries 
black and dusky, the bounding tertials plain fuscous; belly white or grayish, ob- 
securely barred posteriorly; axillars and lining of wings white; bill blue-black; 
legs and feet dull orange, the webs dusky. Adult male in breeding season: 
