THE DUCK FAMILY, 23 



With the geese are to be included the tree ducks, a 

 group connecting the sub-famihes of the geese and the 

 ducks, and known by naturahsts as Dendrocygna. 

 They are found only on the southern borders of the 

 United States, and thus will but seldom come under the 

 notice of North American sportsmen. They are really 

 duck-like, tree-inhabiting geese. There are several 

 species, occurring chiefly in the tropics. 



The true ducks are divided into three groups, known 

 as Anatincs, or shoal-water ducks, FuligulincB, or sea 

 ducks, and Mergince, fish ducks, or mergansers. These 

 three groups are natural ones, although the birds be- 

 longing to them are constantly associated together dur- 

 ing the migrations, and often live similar lives. No 

 one of the three is confined either to sea coast or in- 

 terior, but all are spread out over the whole breadth of 

 the continent. In summer the great majority of the 

 birds of each group migrate to the farther north, there 

 to raise their young, while others still breed sparingly 

 within the United States, where formerly they did so 

 in great numbers. 



As is indicated by one of their English names, the 

 fresh water ducks prefer fresh and shallow water, and 

 must have this last because they do not dive for their 

 food, but feed on what they can pick up from the bot- 

 toms and margins of the rivers and pools which they 

 frequent. The sea ducks, on the other hand, are ex- 

 pert divers, many of them feeding in water from fif- 

 teen to thirty feet deep. The food of the mergansers 

 is assumed to consist largely of small fish, which they 



