1 62 Job, The Anatidee of North Dakota. [ April 



their abundance and general distribution. I visited five or six 

 different localities, aside from Devil's Lake, where the Canada 

 Goose still breeds, and found several nests. A few Swans are 

 yet reported by residents around Devil's Lake during the nesting 

 season. Reports of their nesting in or near the Turtle Mountain 

 country I failed to verify, though I think they have done so in 

 recent years, and a few may yet, further west than I went. 



I should classify the Ducks as to their occurrence in the breed- 

 ing season in the following groups : — 



i. Abundant: — Blue-winged Teal, Shoveller, Mallard, and 

 Pin-tail. These were seen in nearly every puddle large enough 

 for a Duck to swim in, as well as in all larger bodies of water. 



2. Common: — Gadwall, Baldpate, Red-head, and Lesser Scaup. 

 These were found about most of the larger sloughs and lakes, and 

 many of the smaller. 



3. Locally common: — Canvas-back, Ruddy, American Golden- 

 eye, and White-winged Scoter, — the latter only in the Devil's 

 Lake region. 



4. Rare: — Green-winged Teal, Greater Scaup, Ring-neck, 

 Wood Duck, and Hooded Merganser. 



The Hooded Merganser {Lofihodytes cucullatus) I did not meet 

 on this trip, but in 1890, about the first of June, I came close 

 upon a pair swimming in the Sheyenne River. The Wood Duck I 

 noted but once, — ■ a male, in the Goose River. I did not find the 

 Buffle-head. 



The only specimen of the Ring-necked Duck (Aythya affinis) 

 was encountered in the Turtle Mountains, on June 14, when I was 

 so fortunate as to start a female from her nest. It was in a 

 reedy, boggy bayou, or arm of a lake, which was full of Bitterns, 

 Black Terns, and Bronzed, Red-winged, and Yellow-headed 

 Blackbirds. I was on my way out to photograph a Bittern's nest 

 already found, and was struggling along more than up to my 

 knees in mud and water, when a smallish Duck flushed almost at 

 my feet from some thick, dead rushes, disclosing twelve buffy 

 eggs, nearly fresh. The clear view within a yard of the pearl 

 gray speculum and the total absence ot white on the wing told 

 the story. She alighted near by in open water, and gave me and 

 my companion such fine opportunity to study her with the glass 



