^°''iS?^ "] Brewster, The Red-legged Black Duck. 329 



ponderance, in our bags, of very large 'winter' ducks. I weighed 

 a large number and many went to 6 lbs. to the pair. I shot numbers 

 [of Black Ducks] in this same region twelve years ago and then we 

 were always surprised to see any of these big ducks .... Gunners 

 have spoken to me of the same thing, that is, a change in the type 

 of Black Duck during the last few^ years at Currituck. . . .At the 

 same time, up here in Wenham, we don't get the September flight 

 of small ducks [i. e., trisfis] that we used to get along from 1900 to 

 1905, and jet there are full as many late November and December 

 Black Ducks [i. e., ruhripes] around the ponds. Can it be that the 

 big duck is taking the place of the smaller one, he being perhaps a 

 shyer bird with more distant breeding grounds, and that the small 

 duck has suffered more during the general decrease in water-fowl." 



At Lake Umbagog I have never met with ruhripes at any date 

 earlier than September 27 (1889), although during the twenty or 

 more years when I was accustomed to spend the greater part of 

 every autumn there I must have examined fully two hundred freshly 

 killed Black Ducks shot in September, to say nothing of the thou- 

 sands of living birds seen at close range under conditions which 

 enabled me to make sure of the coloring of their legs and feet. Of 

 the specimens actually taken very many w^ere shown by dissection 

 to be more than one year old. That no one of them had passed the 

 maximum age when, according to Dr. Dwight, all Black Ducks 

 assume the bright red coloring of the legs and feet, never afterwards 

 to part with it, is obviously improbable if not, as I believe, simply 

 inconceivable. 



Another fact of some apparent significance is the tendency shown 

 by Black Ducks having red legs to keep together; either wholly by 

 themselves, in small flocks, as I have repeatedly known to happen 

 in late autumn at Lake Umbagog, or in pairs or clustering groups, 

 when mingling with brown-legged birds, as I have witnessed in 

 early spring in Massachusetts. An interesting instance of the latter 

 kind came under my notice in March, 1909. On the IGth of the 

 month Mr. Purdie and I found eighty-four Black Ducks assembled 

 at Fresh Pond where all but a few, swimming in open water, were 

 standing on a great raft of floating ice, basking in the morning sun. 

 With the help of its clear rays and of a strong glass I w^as able to 

 satisfy myself that there were only fifteen representatives of ruhripes 



