Vol. XVII 
1900 
] BREWSTER, Breeding Habits of Golden-eye Duck. 213 
her beak down to the ground or to the water, one after another 
being taken down until the whole brood is taken in safety from 
the elevated nesting place; and I have been assured by the 
peasants [of Lapland and Finland] that this always takes place 
in the dead of the night.” 
Wilson was told by a person who lived within twenty or thirty 
yards of a tree in which a pair of Wood Ducks had nested for 
four successive years that “he had seen the female, the spring 
preceding, carry down thirteen young, one by one, in less than 
ten minutes. She caught them in her bill by the wing or back 
of the neck, and landed them safely at the foot of the tree, 
whence she afterward led them to the water.” 
Audubon, in his justly celebrated account of the Wood Duck — 
one of the best and most complete bird biographies that has 
ever been written —says: ‘If the nest is placed immediately 
over the water, the young, the moment they are hatched, scramble 
to the mouth of the hole, launch into the air with their little wings 
and their feet spread out, and drop into their favorite element ; but 
whenever their birthplace is at some distance from it, the mother 
carries them to it one by one in her bill, holding them so as not 
to injure their yet tender frame. On several occasions, however, 
when the hole was thirty, forty, or more yards from a bayou or 
other piece of water, I observed that the mother suffered the 
young to fall on the grasses and dried leaves beneath the tree, 
and afterwards led them directly to the nearest edge of the next 
pool or creek.” (Birds of America, 1843, Vol. VI, p. 273.) 
Mr. Fred Mather has contributed the following account of 
how young Wood Ducks, bred in captivity, leave the nest: ‘* Some 
writers claim that the mother takes them in her bill and others 
say that she carries them on her back. I had a string of pens 
back of my house; a pair in each, for they are better to be sepa- 
rated, and usually I found the mother and her brood on the water 
in the morning; but on two occasions I saw them leave the nest. 
The mother went first to the pool and called; she had brooded 
them for twenty-four hours or more, and they were strong. Then 
one after another the little things climbed out of the box and 
tumbled to the ground, orto the water. 
“They had to climb 4 to 6 in. of plain board, but they did it. 
