502 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



have been known where the nest was constructed of a few sticks 

 laid in a fork of the branches : usually, however, the inside of 

 a hollow tree is selected for this purpose. On the 18th of May, 

 I visited a tree containing the nest of a Summer Duck, on the 

 banks of Tuckahoe River, New Jersey. It was an old, gro- 

 tesque white oak, whose top had been torn off by a storm. It 

 stood on the declivity of the bank, about twenty yards from the 

 water. In this hollow and broken top, and about six feet down, on 

 the soft, decayed wood, lay thirteen eggs, snugly covered with 

 down, doubtless taken from the breast of the bird. These eggs 

 were of an exact oval shape, less than those of a Hen ; the surface 

 exceedingly fine-grained, and of the highest polish, and slightly 

 yellowish, greatly resembling old, polished ivory. The egg meas- 

 ured two inches and an eighth by one inch and a half. On 

 breaking one of them, the young bird was found to be nearly 

 hatched, but dead, as neither of the parents had been observed 

 about the tree during the three or four days preceding, and were 

 conjectured to have been shot. 



" This tree had been occupied, probably by the same pair, for 

 four successive years, in breeding-time : the person who gave me 

 the information, and whose house was within twenty or thirty yards 

 of the tree, said 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 afterwards 

 led them to the water. Under this same tree, at the time I visited 

 it, a large sloop lay on the stocks, nearly finished : the deck was not 

 more than twelve feet distant from the nest ; yet, notwithstanding 

 the presence and noise of the workmen, the Ducks would not aban- 

 don their old breeding-place, but continued to pass out and in, as if 

 no person had been near. The male usually perched on an adjoin- 

 ing limb, and kept watch while the female was laying, and also 

 often while she was sitting. A tame Goose had chosen a hollow 

 space, at the root of the same tree, to lay and hatch her young in. 



" The Summer Duck seldom flies in flocks of more than three or 

 four individuals together, and most commonly in pairs or singly. 

 The common note of the Drake is peet, peet ; but when, standing 

 sentinel, he sees danger, he makes a noise not unlike the crowing 



