° 1910 J Wright, Rare Wild Ducks Wintering at Boston, Mass. 39 / 



of one day, January 17, when this little company got scattered 

 but quickly came together again, and an occasion in late February, 

 when it was absent for two days with its companions, but again 

 returned. This drake is regarded as a very fine type of the species. 

 The red iris is easily discerned when the bird is near, and the heavy 

 black bill extending almost straight out from the line of the crown 

 is very apparent even at a distance. He and his other wild com- 

 panions succeeded in getting some of the bread which during a 

 visit of observation Mr. Francis H. Allen and I threw to them, 

 although the park Mallards were rather too quick for these wild 

 birds to secure much in this manner of feeding and were more 

 ready to come near than they. But these ducks afforded us 

 very close views; the range sometimes was not more than twenty- 

 five or thirty feet. A month later these ducks had become still 

 less timid and allowed Mr. E. E. Caduc and myself to stand as 

 near as fifteen feet of them, while they actively fed on the bread 

 thrown to them and were successful in getting all they desired. 



Four other records of Canvas-backs in this vicinity in recent 

 years may be mentioned. A drake in full adult plumage was 

 seen by me on Fresh Pond, December 23, 1905, and remained there 

 to January 8, seventeen days, when the pond closed up with ice. 

 He was in company with a flock of Black Ducks, and it seems as 

 if his stay depended solely upon the pond continuing open in some 

 part, in which case he might have been disposed to remain through- 

 out the winter. It is on record in Mr. Brewster's 'Birds of the 

 Cambridge Region ' that Mr. Harold Bowditch and Mr. Richard S. 

 Eustis saw a female Canvas-back on Fresh Pond on November 18, 

 1903. This bird was seen by me on the 20th and by Mr. Brewster 

 and Mr. Walter Deane on the 30th. The third record is that 

 of a drake seen by me on Chestnut Hill Reservoir on March 9, 

 10, and 12, 1908. The fourth record was also on the reservoir 

 where on March 21, 1909, Mr. R. M. Marble and Mr. Barron 

 Brainerd saw a drake, which was not present on the following 

 day. 



Lesser Scaup Duck. — One young male Lesser Scaup was first 

 seen by me on Jamaica Pond on November 12. Two Lesser Scaup 

 drakes had been seen on the pond on September 25 by members 

 of the Norfolk Bird Club, and on October 31 a male and a female 



