THE GOLDEN-EYE, ETC. 195 



cinnamon-teal. The green-wing is the smallest of all 

 the ducks, its length being about fourteen and a half 

 inches. The length of the ruddy-duck is sixteen 

 inches, and that of the cinnamon-teal seventeen inches. 



The ruddy-duck is generally dispersed throughout 

 North America and breeds throughout its range. 

 There are often many eggs in a nest. One was found 

 containing twenty, but Elliot says these must have 

 been deposited by two females. 



Herbert Job recently found the ruddy-duck breeding 

 in the same locality with the canvas-backs and red- 

 heads in North Dakota, and procured photographs of 

 the nests, one of which contained fifteen eggs. It 

 seemed almost impossible, he says, in writing about 

 this nest, that such a little bird as the ruddy-duck 

 should have laid that pile of eggs several times its 

 own weight in less than three weeks. 



It will not be long before all the ducks and geese 

 cease to breed anywhere within the United States. 

 Before it is too late the State of Dakota or the Na- 

 tional Government should, as I have observed else- 

 where, establish a park or refuge, to include some ot 

 the small lakes and sloughs where the wild fowl now 

 nest. Such parks would be far more interesting than 

 any zoological garden where beasts and birds are con- 

 fined in ill-smelling cages, and where they too often 

 present a picture of unhappiness. The results of such 

 a park would be to keep the other lakes and streams 

 of the State supplied with birds for many years, and 

 would do much to save entire families of birds, which 

 the eminent ornithologist Elliot and many others be- 

 lieve will entirely vanish from the North American 



