44 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



How easy for the young ducks to hide amid the pick- 

 erel-weed along our river, while a boat goes by ! and 

 this plant attains its height when these water-fowl are 

 of a size to need its shelter. Thousands of them might 

 be concealed by it along our river, not to speak of the 

 luxuriant sedge and grass of the meadows, much of it 

 so wet as to be inaccessible. These ducks are diving 

 scarcely two feet within the edge of the pickerdl-weed, 

 yet one who had not first seen them exposed from a 

 distance would never suspect their neighborhood. 



Sej)t. 17, 1860. See a flock of eight or ten wood 

 ducks on the Grindstone Meadow, with glass, some 

 twenty-five rods off, — several drakes very handsome. 

 They utter a creaking scream as they sail there, — 

 being alarmed, — from time to time, shrill and loud, 

 very unlike the black duck. At last one sails off, call- 

 ing the others by a short creaking note. 



[/S'ee also under General and Miscellaneous, pp. 418, 

 432, 433.] 



AMERICAN GOLDEN-EYE; WHISTLER 



[^See under American Merganser, pp. 24, 25, 28.] 



BUFFLE-HEAD ; BUFFLE-HEADED DUCK 



April 19, 1855. From Heywood's Peak I thought I 

 saw the head of a loon in the pond, thirty-five or forty 

 rods distant. Bringing my glass to bear, it seemed sunk 

 very low in the water, — all the neck concealed, — but 

 I could not tell which end was the bill. At length I 

 discovered that it was the whole body of a little duck, 

 asleep with its head in its back, exactly in the middle 



