BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 63 



• 



forth to my cottage on Lake Minnetonka during many succes- 

 sive summers, I noticed now and then in the early mornings, 

 an occasional solitary duck flying along the course of Minne- 

 haha creek that looked in the distance like the male of this 

 species. 



Afterwards Mr. T. S. Roberts found the nest at a point not 

 very remote from where I had noticed those males, as he 

 informed me. Since then I have found this species breeding ^ 

 in several localities in the vicinity of Minneapolis, and in 

 Kandiyohi county. I am satisfied that it does so generally 

 throughout the State. Of the seventeen eggs I have had the 

 opportunity to see in the nest and in the possession of a col- 

 lector in my employment, the average measurements were, 

 2.25 by 1.60 inches. They were white, with a pale wash of 

 green, that varied considerably in intensity, being deepest 

 before they had been blown. The nests were variously placed 

 from on a muskrat house, as in the case of the one found by 

 Mr. Roberts, to a flat spot in the thick rice bordering a small 

 lake, as found by my collector. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Bill blackish, with a basal and subterminal bar of bluish- 

 white; head, neck, and body all around anterior to the 

 shoulders, back and tail-coverts, black; the head glossed with 

 green above, on the sides with purplish-violet; the back green- 

 ish; middle of neck with a narrow chestnut ring, subcontin- 

 uous above; under parts, and space immediately anterior to 

 the shoulder white; space anterior to the black of the 

 crissum, and the sides, very finely waved with black; scapulars 

 very slightly sprinkled with dots of grayish; wings plain 

 grayish-brown; speculum, consisting of the terminal half of 

 most of the secondaries, grayish plumbeous, the innermost of 

 them tipped with white; point of chin white. 



Length, 18; wing, 8; tarsus, 1.30; commissure, 2.10. 



Habitat, North America. 



Since writing the above, I have recovered some notes 

 mislaid, in which I find that both of my assistants, Messrs. 

 Lewis and Treganow^an, have recognized their breeding in Big 

 Stone and Becker counties. The former upon finding them 

 frequently in the breeding season, and the latter having found 

 the nest in Becker in 1879. Mr. Wa*shburn found them well 

 represented among the ducks, breeding at Mud lake in Otter 

 Tail county. Mr. J. M. Holzinger says in a communication to 

 me in 1887, that this species is more abundant at Winona than 

 A. afflnis, but he makes no mention of its local breeding 



