132 Kennard, Ferruginous Stains on Waterfowl. [April 



muddy sloughs; and they are as a rule croppers rather than 

 diggers. 



In general, it appears that swans, geese, and ducks, or other 

 waterfowl, may become stained if their feeding habits bring them 

 among iron-bearing waters; particularly about the deltas of such 

 great muddy rivers as the Mississippi, the Mackenzie or the Yukon. 



Swans frequently acquire the stain about their heads somewhere 

 on their summer range, but those that winter in the east appear to 

 lose it during their sojourn on the Atlantic Coast, while those 

 wintering on the Gulf are apt to retain it. 



Those ducks that winter along the Atlantic Coast remain, as a 

 rule, unstained while those wintering along the Louisiana Coast, 

 particularly about the Mississippi Delta, are apt to become badly 

 stained. 



While these notes have been limited to the few species actually 

 examined chemically, there are many others that appeared to be 

 similarly stained, both from this country and abroad. 



In assembling the data, upon which these notes are necessarily 

 based, I am indebted, not only to the ornithologists already men- 

 tioned, but to several others who have very kindly supplied me with 

 data from collections to which they had access. My thanks are 

 particularly due to Messrs. Bangs, Bent, Bishop, Brewster, Dwight, 

 Fleming, Oberholser, Osgood, Stone, and Taverner, members of 

 the A. O. U.; and to Messrs. E. A. Mcllhenny of Avery Island, 

 Louisiana, and John Heywood of Gardner, Mass., game conserva- 

 tionists. 





