228 DUCK SHOOTING. 



of Calais, Me,, to whom ornithology owes so much. 

 In Forest and Stream he has said : 



"Many years ago I was up at Grand Lake Stream 

 salmon fishing, when I saw a large duck fly into a hole 

 high up in a large birch tree. The log drivers said it 

 was a sheldrake and had nested there many years. I 

 was anxious to see what kind of a merganser it was. 

 After the log drivers' day's work was done one of them 

 by driving spikes managed to get up. The old bird 

 flew out, and he brought down one ^gg, and said there 

 were seven more. I then got the man to arrange a 

 noose over the hole, and the next morning we had the 

 old bird hung by the neck and the eight eggs were new 

 to science. The log drivers said they had seen the old 

 bird bring down the young in her bill to the water. 

 Several years later Mr. John Krider, of Philadelphia, 

 went with me to the same tree and collected the eggs. 

 He was a well-known collector. Mr. Audubon was 

 mistaken in his account of the nesting of this mergan- 

 ser, since he describes it as nesting on the ground 

 among rushes, in the manner of the serrator, having a 

 large nest raised 7 or 8 inches above the surface." 



Often, while travelling along streams in uninhabited 

 parts of the country, one may come upon a mother mer- 

 ganser and her brood of tiny young and may drive 

 them before him for miles along the stream, the birds 

 keeping well out of his way, and the mother watching 

 over them with the tenderest care. It is a curious sight 

 to see these little downy creatures run, as it seems, over 

 the surface of the water, at the same time flapping their 



