Duck-shooting 131 



nearer, the white back and red neck mark them. 

 They see the stool, and the flock wheels ; two or 

 three leaders . turn toward the decoys, and the 

 others follow. When alarmed, they rise high up, 

 and their powerful flight soon takes them beyond 

 danger. If wounded, the bird is quick to dive, 

 and swims a long distance under water, showing 

 the top of the head or bill, and then only for an 

 instant. 



In Currituck and Pamlico sounds the canvas- 

 back are rarely shot from the points of marsh, but 

 almost entirely from batteries and bush blinds 

 far offshore. Nowadays a bag of ten or fifteen 

 ducks represents a good day's shooting. Formerly, 

 all through the winter and well into the spring, 

 the canvas-back remained in the waters of Virginia 

 and North Carolina, leaving for the north in April. 



The breeding range is from Oregon and the 

 northern portions of the western United States to 

 the northern limits of the fur countries on the 

 interior bodies of water. It has been found nest- 

 ing in the mountainous portions of northern 

 Oregon and California, Montana, and Dakota, in 

 the Devil's Lake region, on the Anderson and 

 Fraser rivers, and in numbers on the Yukon. 

 Arriving at its breeding-ground late in May, by 

 the middle of June incubation is well started. 

 The nest is made from rushes and grass built up 

 from shallow water, and is situated in clumps of 



