The Pintail 303 



off, on her own wings and on those of the keen northeast wind. What 

 other duck of these marshes than the Green-winged Teal or the Pintail 

 could quite hit that pace! She had protected her eight eggs from the 

 rain until the last possible instant, and then made up well for lost time. 



The nest was typical, a rather frail affair, about the size of the crown 

 of a hat, situated in a slight hollow amid not very tall grass and weeds, 

 quite near some low bushes a mere little rim of dry 

 grass, lined with a moderate amount of grayish down. ' 



The eggs were rather small and narrow for the appar- 

 ent size of the bird, and were light buff, with a decided greenish or olive 

 hue. This greenish tinge distinguishes them from the white and creamy 

 eggs of the Gadwall or Widgeon, and from the brown eggs of the Scaup, 

 all of similar size ; while their size differentiates them from the eggs of 

 the other ducks of that region. Hence an experienced person may pretty 

 surely identify a Pintail's eggs even without seeing the owner. 



The number of eggs in a set is likely to be fewer than in the case of 

 the other ducks mentioned, nor is the maximum as large as with some. I 

 have found probably about thirty nests of the Pintail. In records of 

 twenty-one of these which were accessible, two had five incubated eggs, 

 three had six, six had seven and eight, three had nine, and only one had 

 ten. Its other neighbors very seldom have less than eight, nine to eleven 

 being common. Of large sets, in the case of other species, I have found 

 a Golden-eye with sixteen, a Ruddy Duck, Redhead, 

 and Canvasback each with fifteen, and a Redhead with ar *f 



the surprising number of twenty-two, every one fertile. 



No duck is less particular about nesting near water than this species. 

 Though we may see the pair swimming in the sloughs during the nesting- 

 season, the nest may be almost anywhere perhaps on a dry island or ele- 

 vation in a marsh, but, as likely as not, far back on the sun-parched 

 prairie, where I have found nests a mile from the nearest water. 



The Pintail and the Mallard are the earliest of the ducks to lay eggs. 

 The ice does not disappear fiwm those big lakes of the far Northwest till 

 about the middle of May, but by the 25th of June I have caught young 

 Pintails two months or more old, showing that the eggs were laid as early 

 as the first week in April, when the country was still in the grip of winter. 

 Most sets, however, seem to be laid early in May, "Wild 



though some are not forthcoming till late in the month, Ducklings 



very possibly after an early set had been destroyed. at Home 



The downy young are very different in appearance from the young 

 of other "river" ducks. Instead of being yellow and brown they are 

 brownish black, mottled with whitish above and with grayish white on 

 the underpants. 



These earliest broods are able to fly by the middle of July, whereas 

 the late-breeding Scaups and Scoters do not mature their young before 

 tbe first week of October. By early August there are considerable flocks 

 in the prairie sloughs of young Pintails and Mallards. Having had as 



