228 



RIVER AND POND DUCKS 



The stomach contents of 399 of these birds from 24 States and from 

 Ontario, taken during the months of August to December and during 

 February to April, inclusive, showed the diet to be about nine-tenths 

 vegetable matter and gave the following approximate percentage: duck- 

 weed, 10; cypress cones and galls, 9; sedges and tubers, 9; grasses and 

 grass seed, 8; pondweeds, 7; acorns and beechnuts, 6; seeds of water lilies 

 and leaves of water shield, 6; seeds of water elm and allies, 5; of smart- 

 weeds and docks, 5; of coontail, 3; of arrow arum and skunk cabbage, 2; 

 of burr marigold, 2; of buttonbush, 2; of burr reed, 2; wild celery, 1; 

 pecan nuts, 1; grape seeds, 1; seeds of swamp privet and ash, 1; miscel- 

 laneous plant food, 10; total vegetable food, 90 per cent. Dragon flies, 

 3; bugs, 2; beetles, 1; grasshoppers, crickets, flies, wasps, spiders and 

 miscellaneous, 4; total animal food, 10 per cent. Contrary to the habits 

 of most ducks, molluscs, snails, and bivalves are seldom taken. They are 



very fond of spiders and in 

 some of the stomachs exam- 

 ined, spiders represented as 

 much as 75 or 80 per cent of 

 the contents. 



The Wood Duck roosts 

 during the night in open 

 pools in the woods, and in 

 the early dawn flies out to its 

 feeding grounds in the wild 

 rice marshes and the banks 

 and shores of sluggish streams 

 and ponds. It will rise and fly 



over the tops of the highest 

 forest trees on its way to and 

 from its roosting and feeding 

 grounds. Of its behaviour, 

 Bent (1923) says: "No 

 duck is so expert as the 

 Wood Duck in threading its 

 way through the interlacing 

 branches of the forest, at 

 which its skill has been com- 

 pared with that of the pas- 

 senger pigeon. I have stood 

 on the shore of a woodland pond in the darkening twilight of a summer 

 evening and watched these ducks come in to roost; on swift and silent 

 wings they would glide like meteors through the tree tops, twisting, turn- 

 ing, and dodging, until it was almost too dark for me to see them. Ordi- 

 narily its flight is swift and direct, usually high in the air. When mi- 

 grating it flies in small flocks, probably family parties." Audubon 

 (1840) says: "On the ground the Wood Duck runs nimbly and with 

 more grace than most other birds of its tribe. On reaching the shore 



