THE BIRDS OF NEW JERSEY. 85 



144 Aix sponsa (Linnaeus). 

 Wood Duck, Summer Duck. 



PLATE 9. 



Adult male. Length, 19-20. Wing, 9-9.50. Above, black or brownish-black ; 

 feathers variously glossed and tipped with metallic blue and green; seconda- 

 ries, tipped with white ; outer edge of primaries toward their tips, silvery ; 

 head, crested metallic green and purple; a white stripe over the eye, another 

 behind it; throat, white, running well up to the cheeks and back of the ear- 

 coverts ; breast, maroon-chestnut, spotted with triangular white spots ; lower 

 breast and abdomen, white; sides of body finely vermiculated with black and 

 buff; under tail-coverts, dark brown, glossed with green, a maroon patch on 

 each side at base of the tail, and a diagonal band of black and white across the 

 shoulder. 



Adult female. Length, 17-19. Dark brown above, somewhat glossed with 

 metallic colors, but very much duller than the male; head, gray, glossed with 

 green on the crown ; a white band all around the base of the bill, and a white 

 spot before and behind the eye ; throat, white, running up behind the ear- 

 coverts ; breast, dull brown, spotted with white and buff ; abdomen, white. 



Nest in a hollow tree, composed of grass, leaves, etc., lined with down ; eggs, 

 eight to fifteen, pale buffy white, 2 x 1.50. 



Rare summer resident, and somewhat more plentiful transient. 

 Formerly a common species, but rapidly reduced in numbers. 



Mr. R. T. Morris 1 records it in winter on the Hackensack marshes, 

 and it has been reported by others as a winter resident, but it is cer- 

 tainly rare at this season. Mr. Babson 2 says that four or five pairs 

 breed along the Millstone River, near Princeton, where he observed 

 them from February 28th to November 28th. Mr. W. L. Baily saw 

 several at Spotswood November 23d, 1895. Two nests are mentioned 

 by "B. B.," one on the Passaic River and the other in Ocean county. 8 

 Mr. W. B. Crispin writes me that he found a nest containing sixteen 

 eggs April 25th, 1908, in a natural cavity of a Black Gum tree, about 

 forty feet up, in a wood containing a colony of Great Blue Herons, in 

 Salem county. Mr. Stewardson Brown tells me of a duck's nest that 

 had been described to him, obviously of this species, found in a hollow 

 tree near Blackwood, Camden county, in the spring of 1908. Alex. 

 Wilson 4 describes a nest on the Tuckahoe River which he visited May 

 18th. 



1 Forest and Stream, 1888, p. 485. 



2 Birds of Princeton, p. 37. 

 8 O. and O., 1884, p. 3-4. 



4 Amer. Orn., VIII., p. 97. 



