lyo "^^^T, Nesting Habits of Anatidce iti N. Dakota. Laot. 



near by with a large open cavity in the top, which on closer inves- 

 tigation was found to contain a Golden-eye's nest with i o eggs buried 

 in a mass of white down. The stub was about lo feet high and 

 the cavity about two feet deep ; the bird was not on the nest but 

 the eggs proved to have been incubated about one week. 



This nest is shown in the accompanying photograph (Plate V, 

 fig. 2), which also shows the Krider's Hawk's nest in the elm in 

 the background. A pair of Western House Wrens also had a nest 

 in the dead branch above the cavity. 



The fifth and last nest was found while walking along the shore, 

 by seeing the Golden-eye fly out over our heads from a small swamp 

 oak on the edge of the woods. I could almost reach the large open 

 cavity from the ground; the opening was well decorated with 

 the tell-tale down, and at the bottom of the cavity, two feet deep, 

 was a set of 1 4 eggs, in which incubation had begun, and one addled 

 last year's egg, completely buried in a profusion of some white 

 down, so well matted together that it could be lifted from the eggs 

 without falling apart, like a soft warm blanket. 



The eggs of the American Golden-eye are entirely different in 

 color from any other ducks' eggs to be found in this region, which 

 varies from a clear pale malachite green in the lighter specimens 

 to a more olivaceous or pale chromium green in the darker speci- 

 mens. 



The measurements of 1 7 eggs in my collection are as follows : 

 length, 2.58 to 2.37 ; breadth, 1.77 to 1.66 ; and average 2.46 by 

 1. 71. 



Oidemia deglandi Boiiap. White-winged Scoter, 



Although generally considered to be very rare during the breed- 

 ing season in North Dakota, we found the White-winged Scoters 

 nesting in fair numbers in certain restricted localities in the Devils 

 Lake region, which probably forms the extreme southern limit of 

 its breeding range. We saw isolated pairs occasionally flying or 

 swimming about in the large lakes, where it breeds in small colonies 

 on the islands with the Gadwalls, Baldpates and Lesser Scaups, or 

 on the shores of the lakes not far from the water. The nests are 



