174 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [13:5— May, 1917 



la ted upland bogs. Wood ducks, also, sometimes nest here in 

 hollow trees, high above water or even far removed from it, and the 

 ducklings, soon after hatching, drop out of the nesc, collect them- 

 selves as well as they can, and follow the mother to the nearest 

 pond or stream. 



The green-winged, teal, the pintail, the widgeon, and most of the 

 blue- winged teal, black ducks, and mallards nest in the west and 

 north, coming here only as fall and spring migrants. Their nests 

 are rough structures, lined with down from the ducks' breasts 

 which conceals the eggs when the parent birds go in search of food. 

 Ducks lay from eight to twenty eggs, a provision of nature against 

 the great mortality among young ducks, for the young maturing 

 from a brood average only four or five. The river ducks migrate in 

 rather small flocks, but by the time they reach their winter quar- 

 ters in southern United States, especially some of the large game 

 refuges, they combine into flocks sometimes numbering thousands. 



The common winter ducks of central New York are the bluebills 

 (or scaup ducks), the canvasbacks, the redheads, and the golden- 

 eyes. Ic is not uncommon for black ducks and a few mallards also, 

 to winter as far north as this, and, when the snow is not deep, they 

 supplement their feeding on the lake with trips to the upland fields 

 where they find grain and weed seed. The diving ducks (Fuligu- 

 linae) are, however, the cypical winter resident ducks of New York 

 State. In fair weather they usually mass their numbers into a few 

 large flocks far from shore, but on stormy days chey are restless, 

 circling about on whistling wings, hunting a sheltered bay in which 

 to feed. 



They nest in the large marshes of northwestern United States 

 and Canada coming south only far enough to find food. Usually 

 the Finger Lakes do not freeze their entire length, so that these 

 ducks have good feeding on the beds of eel grass and other pond 

 weeds which cover parts of the lake bottom, but in severe winters, 

 when only a few holes stay open, the local bird club and game 

 wardens have had to take them large quantities of grain. At such 

 times many of them become so tame that they feed close to shore, 

 even on the shore, seeming to forget that they ever were hunted. 



Their fear is mostly for motion, so that if one keeps perfectly 

 still, he may have the joy of studying them within a few feet — 

 their wonderful plumage, their curious calls, their feeding habits, 

 and their constant fighting with each other. 



