° 1919 ] Wright, Black Duck Nesting at Boston. 359 



conditions and might be cherishing a purpose of adopting the 

 Garden for their season's family life. So when the pond had been 

 filled by opening connection with the city's water supply, it was 

 reassuring of the fixedness of their choice to see the pair present 

 and investigating the island, the drake with the duck. Two 

 days later, an observer had the unusual sight of witnessing the 

 female walk along a somewhat horizontal branch of one of the 

 willows on the island, as a tree-nesting duck would do. The 

 following day, the 20th, she was seen settled upon what we sup- 

 posed to be the chosen site of her nest, and egg laying probably 

 began. The location was near the top of the island, which, how- 

 ever, is small, being, perhaps, not more than forty feet in diameter. 

 The sitting was successfully accomplished, notwithstanding much 

 boating on the pond, and on May 29 mother duck led ten ducklings 

 down to the water. This would indicate that the period of laying 

 extended from April 20 to 30 and the sitting period of four weeks 

 to May 28. I had left the city for the season on that day and so 

 was informed by interested observers of what subsequently took 

 place. It seems that two of the ducklings were soon lost, and 

 that when the remaining eight were only four days old they were 

 taken from the mother by the city park department and carried 

 to the zoological collection at Franklin Park. The park manage- 

 ment, it may be said, got an impression from the actions of the 

 mother duck in leading her young much about over the lawns and 

 getting them into fountain basins from which they could not 

 clamber out and follow her, that she was lacking in the proper 

 care of them. The parent buds at once left the Garden for the 

 season. But they were seen on two or three occasions in October, 

 showing that they retained a liking for the place. It was, however, 

 a very abrupt and disappointing ending to a mother's patient sitting 

 and a most successful hatching, with much credit due the boating 

 public that the nest had in no way been interfered with during the 

 period of almost six weeks covering the laying and incubation of 

 the eggs. The mother's restlessness with her young may have 

 been due to a desire to get her ducklings away to a less frequented 

 place. But the Mallard of 1910 had brought up on the Garden 

 pond her two broods hatched on the island, and these had had no 

 difficulty in swimming out of the way of approaching boats and 



