NATURAL HISTORY SKETCHES 331 



young. They brought me several different kinds after- 

 ward, wood duck, whistlers and hooded mergansers, but 

 no young of the large merganser. 



Many years ago I was up to Grand L,ake Stream 

 salmon fishing, when I saw a large duck fly into a hole 

 high up in a large birch tree. The log drivers said it 

 was a sheldrake and had nested there many years. I 

 was anxious to see what kind of a merganser it was. 

 After the log drivers' day's work was done one of them 

 by driving spikes managed to get up. The old bird flew 

 out, and he brought down one egg and said there were 

 seven more. I then got the man to arrange a noose 

 over the hole and the next morning we had the old bird 

 hung by the neck and the eight eggs were new to 

 science. The log drivers said they had seen the old bird 

 bring down the young in her bill to the water. Several 

 years later Mr. John Krider of Philadelphia went with 

 me to the same tree and collected the eggs. He was a 

 well-known collector. Mr. Audubon was mistaken in 

 his account of the nesting of this merganser since he 

 describes it as nesting on the ground among rushes, in 

 the manner of the serrator, having a large nest raised 

 seven or eight inches above the surface. 



On one of my collecting trips my attention was called 

 by the log drivers to a singular contest between two 

 ducks ; it proved to be a female wood duck and a female 

 hooded merganser, for the possession of a hollow tree. 

 Two birds had been observed for several days contesting 

 for the nest, neither permitting the other to remain in 

 peaceful occupancy. The nest was found to contain 

 eighteen fresh eggs, of which one-third belonged to the 

 merganser and, as the nest was lined with the down of 



