No. 123.] DIVISION OF ORNITHOLOGY. 79 



Mr. T. A. James, curator of the State Museum at Augusta, 

 Maine, writes me that while at Troutdale, Maine, Mr. Murray, 

 the superintendent at the hatchery, informed hhn that a pair 

 of Wood Ducks had bred in a stub of a tree there, and that 

 he had seen them carrying their young in the bill one at a 

 time from the tree to the lake. After depositing one duckling 

 in the water, the bird immediately returned to the stub for 

 another, and continued so to remove them until the entire 

 brood was transferred. A letter to Mr. Murray elicited an 

 immediate reply in which he says that the hatchery stands be- 

 side the woods about 1,000 feet from the edge of Lake Moxie, 

 and that a pair of Wood Ducks had been coming there for 

 several years to nest about 300 feet from the hatchery in a 

 stub about 15 feet from the ground. About the last of June 

 the mother takes the young in her bill to the water. There is 

 a large tree about halfway to the pond in which she rests before 

 completing her journey. 



Lack of space precludes further detailed reports, but Mr. 

 Lewis W. Hodgkins, Taunton, Massachusetts, Professor Robert 

 Thompson, Plain View, Nebraska, and Mr. Clifford Cabell, 

 Wingina, Virginia, give circumstantial accounts of the convey- 

 ance of the young of Wood Ducks to the water by the parent. 

 Others give less definite reports. 



Some ornithologists show remarkable skepticism regarding 

 the observations of others, believing only what they see. One 

 who has seen the ducklings fall 40 or 50 feet from the nest 

 insists that it would be impossible for the mother to carry them, 

 and that she always leads them to the water. Another, having 

 seen the mother carry them on her back, asserts that this is 

 the only possible method, as it would kill them to be carried 

 in the bill or between the feet or to fall from a high tree. 

 One who has seen the mother carry the young in the bill dis- 

 believes all reports to the contrary, and brings forward argu- 

 ments to prove the impossibility of any other method. 



Opinions or beliefs have no place here. The evidence only 

 should be weighed and considered. We have evidence (not all 

 of which has been given here, for lack of space) that tree- 

 nesting ducks get their young to the water by the following 

 methods: (1) By calling the young out of the nest, pushing 



