DESCRIPTIVE LIST 69 



This is a long-tailed, long-necked, neat, slender, and very active duck, being in 

 fact one of the most attractive of our wild fowl. It is built on racing lines and 

 shows speed in every movement, whether on the water or in the air. Every duck- 

 shooter knows, too, that the bird's speed in flight is in keeping with its appearance. 

 Good to look upon, most staisfying to the gunner, and an appetizing dish when on 

 the table, it is a great favorite with discriminating duck-shooters. 



Cairns regarded it as a rare transient at Weaverville, Buncombe County. 



Genus Aix (Boie) 



51. Aix sponsa (Linn.}. WOOD DUCK: SUMMER DUCK. 



Ad. cf. A line from bill over eye, a similar line at base of side of crest, and some of 

 elongated crest-feathers white; throat, a band from it up side of head, and a wider one to nape, 

 white; rest of cheeks and crown green with purplish reflections; a white band in front of wings; 

 breast and a spot at either side of the base of the tail purplish chestnut, the former spotted 

 with white; belly white; sides buffy ochraceous, finely barred with black, longer flank feathers 

 tipped with wider bars of black and white; back greenish brown; scapulars blacker; speculum 

 steel-blue; primaries tipped with greenish blue. Ad. 9 . -Throat and a stripe from the eye 

 backward white; crown purplish brown; sides of the head ashy brown; breast and sides gray- 

 ish brown streaked with buffy; belly white; back olive-brown glossed with greenish; inner 

 primaries tipped with greenish blue. Im. The im. o 71 resembles the 9 L., 18.50; W., 9.00; 

 Tar., 1.35; B., 1.30. (Chap., Birds of E. N A.) 



Range. Whole of temperate North America. 



Range in North Carolina. -Whole State at all seasons. 



"Calloused indeed is the heart of the hunter who can gaze unmoved upon the 

 matchless beauty of a male Wood Duck. For exquisite markings, no duck in the 

 world can surpass the coloring of this living gem of the woodland streams. From 

 early youth the writer has seen much of the ways of the Summer Duck, and whether 

 in flight or in repose on the margin of some quiet pond, its actions have always 

 suggested a gentleness and grace which accord well with the charm of its dress. 

 We can readily believe that the great naturalist, Linnseus, did justice to his feelings 

 when he named it sponsa, the bride. Never is the Wood Duck absent from North 

 Carolina. The margins of our sounds, quiet back-waters from the rivers, seques- 

 tered ponds and rice-field ditches are its haunts. Here late in the summer flocks 

 may be found, sometimes numbering fifty or more. When startled they often 

 divide into companies of ten or a dozen each, probably separating into family 

 groups, and after circling once or twice pass off through the forest, uttering as they 

 go, low plaintive cries of alarm. 



"On May 11, 1898, the writer found a Wood Duck's nest in the hollow of a holly 

 tree in the woods at Cape Hatteras. The entrance to the cavity was about ten feet 

 from the ground and the tree stood in a grove fully six hundred yards from the 

 water. The twelve slightly incubated eggs were almost entirely covered with down 

 plucked from the body of the bird. A remarkable feature about the location of this 

 nest was the fact that the tree stood in a yard near a house, and beneath its branches 

 children, dogs, and pigs disported themselves at pleasure. That their noisy neigh- 

 bors did not greatly disturb the mother-bird was further shown by the fact that 

 while engaged in examining the nest she alighted on the limb of a neighboring tree, 

 where she stood observing my actions with interest. The same day a second nest 



