8 Bent, Nesting Habits of Anatichc in N. Dakota. \'\t^ 



able white down, especially around the upper rim ; it measured i6 

 inches in diameter outside and 8 inches inside, the upper part of 

 the rim being about lo inches above the water; it rested on a 

 bulky mass of dead reeds built up out of the shallow water, the 

 whole structure being firmly held in place by the live growing 

 reeds about it. It held eleven handsome eggs, in which incuba- 

 tion had just begun. I could not photograph this nest, as it was 

 raining hard, but I collected the nest and eggs, which are now 

 in my cabinet. 



We found two more nests of the Redhead in this slough, one of 

 ^hich, found by Mr. Job, contained the unusually large number of 

 twenty-two eggs, which were nearly ready to hatch. Large sets of 

 this species are not uncommon, so that probably these eggs were 

 all laid by the same bird. The third nest was similarly located, 

 but not so well made as the first one. I flushed the bird from it 

 in an area of rather open reeds where the water was not very deep. 

 She flew back and forth across the slough several times, and was 

 soon joined by her mate; the pair then circled about in the vicin- 

 ity as long as I remained near the nest, showing more solicitude 

 than is customary with this species. The nest was a large one, 

 measuring i8 inches in diameter; it was a bulky mass of dead 

 reeds built up out of the shallow water to a height of about 6 

 inches, and hollowed in the centre about 4 inches ; there was very 

 little down used in its construction. The rim of the nest had 

 been broken down on one side, probably by the hasty departure 

 of the duck, so that several of the eggs had rolled out into the 

 water: There were fifteen eggs in the set, which proved to be 

 perfectly fresh. 



We found the Redheads breeding in two large, deep sloughs in 

 Steele County. One of these, in which we found four nests of the 

 Redhead, is illustrated in the photograph (PL III, Fig. i). In the 

 open part of this slough, shown in the foreground, the water was 

 too deep to wade, but, in the southern end of the slough, shown 

 in the background, the water was seldom deeper than the tops of 

 our hip boots, and in many places quite shallow. The principal 

 growth was the tall slough reeds, quite thick in some places, and 

 often as high as our heads, with numerous thick patches of tall 

 cat-tail flags and several patches of the ' queen of the prairie ' 



