330 The Surf Scoter 



Slave Lake, and southern Alaska. Audubon, describing a nest that he 

 found in Labrador, wrote: 



"For more than a week after we had anchored in the lovely harbour 

 of Little Macatina, I had been anxiously searching for the nest of this 

 species, but in vain ; the millions that sped along the shores had no regard 

 to my wishes. At length I found that a few pairs had remained in the 

 neighborhood, and one morning, while in the company of Captain Emery, 

 searching for the nests of the Red-breasted Merganser, over a vast and 

 treacherous fresh-water marsh, I suddenly started a female Surf Duck 

 from her treasure. We were then about five miles distant from our har- 

 bour, from which our party had come in two boats, 

 and fully five and a half miles from the waters of the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence. The marsh was about three 

 miles in length, and so unsafe that more than once we both feared, as we 

 were crossing it, that we might never reach its margin. 



"The nest was placed amid the tall leaves of a bunch of grass, and 

 raised fully four inches above its roots. It was entirely composed of 

 withered and rotted weeds, the former being circularly arranged over the 

 latter, producing a well-rounded cavity, six inches in diameter, by two 

 and a half in depth. The borders of this inner cup were lined with the 

 down of the bird, in the same manner as the Eider Duck's nest, and in it 

 lay five eggs, the smallest number I have ever found in any Duck's nest. 

 They were two inches and two-and-a-half eighths in length, by one inch 

 and five-eighths in their greatest breadth ; more equally rounded at both 

 ends than usually ; the shell perfectly smooth, and of a uniform pale 

 yellowish or cream-color." 



In a letter which the writer recently received from W. E. Clyde Todd 

 there occurs this statement : 



"The Surf Scoter breeds on Charlton Island, near the head of James 

 Bay, and along the east coast of the same, as far south as the Sheppard 

 Islands, in latitude 52 45', at both of which localities I encountered 

 young birds in the summer of 1912. On July 12, at Charlton, a brood of 

 four ducklings, not over a week or ten days old, accompanied by their 

 parents, were discovered in a small lake hidden away in the woods, nearly 

 two miles from the shore. This raised the question 

 Vesting m ag to Aether the old birds are accustomed to seek out 



such retired' situations as nesting-places, and when 

 and how the young are conducted to the open waters of the bay. 



"Later in the season (August 3) a female Scoter with her brood 

 was met with in a sheltered cove along the shore of one of the Sheppard 

 Islands. The young at once made for the shore, while she pattered off 

 in an opposite direction, endeavoring to draw attention to herself just 

 as I have seen other ducks do under similar circumstances." 



The male of this duck has a striking appearance, as may be seen from 

 the accompanying drawing. His face can hardly be said to be handsome, 

 however, and yet no less an authority than William Leon Dawson says 



