82 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 
page 315) are probably hybrids between black ducks used as decoys 
and domestic ducks. Mr. John Marshall of the Geological Survey, 
however, has occasionally shot ducks below Ottawa late in October 
which he says are undoubtedly the bird described by Brewster. 
XLVI. CHAULELASMUS Bonaparte. 1838 
135. Gadwell. Grey Duck, 
Chaulelasmus streperus (LINN.) BONAP, 1838. 
This species is rarely seen during the migration along the Atlantic 
coast; it is also rare in Quebec and Ontario, and MclIlwraith says 
that the pair in his collection are the only ones he has heard of being 
taken in the latter province, though the bird has been shot at Ottawa 
by Mr. W. F. Whitcher, and Fleming records it as a rare migrant at 
Toronto. 
Mcllwraith in his ‘‘Birds of Ontario,’ page 70, seems to doubt 
my statement that they are ‘‘abundant throughout the interior.”’ 
He says they are nowhere abundant and no person has made that 
statement but myself. Dr. Elliott Coues, in writing of the birds 
observed by him on the International boundary says: ‘‘Abun- 
dant throughout the region, where it breeds, like nearly all the 
Anatine. Young still unfledged were observed late in August.” 
I found them abundant on the prairie in 1880, but in the wooded 
country in 1881 shot only one specimen. This is the species that 
breeds almost exclusively in the prairie region, and more than half 
the nests seen in 1895 in making a traverse from the boundary of 
Manitoba to the Rocky mountains were of this species. This and 
the lesser scaup were the common ducks of the southern prairie. 
Richardson says it breeds in numbers to lat. 68°, and Macfarlane 
says he believes it breeds as far north as Anderson river. One 
specimen was taken by Preble at Fort Churchill, Hudson bay and a 
few by Spreadborough between Lesser Slave lake and Peace River 
Landing, Atha. 
It is generally a rare bird in Alaska and British Columbia, but 
Turner reports it common in summer in the Yukon delta. 
BREEDING NoTEes.—A pair of this species reached Deep lake, 
Indian Head, Sask., on April 18th, 1892, and by May 6th they were 
common; on June 24th found a nest on a small island in the lake, 
containing eight eggs. It was made of dry grass lined with 
down from the female’s own breast. In 1895, nests of this species were 
taken at Twelve-mile lake, near Wood mountain, Sask., on neJu 
