BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. aL 
question of the supply of their food, which is mainly small 
fishes. These are abundant in the shallow streams, borders 
of the lakes and ponds, until sealed up by the ice. Most 
writers upon the habits of this unique species speak of the 
use of the lower mandible and gular sac as a scoop, or dip net, 
for gathering in their food. This seems possible, and even 
probable, yet I am compelled to say that while I have often 
observed their habit of dropping the inferior mandible slightly 
beneath the surface of the water when the upper one seemed 
only to rest on it, and thus allow the water to pass into the 
mouth as they were swimming about in deep as well as shallow 
water, I have never discovered the slightest evidence of their 
receiving food at such times Like their renowned habit of 
extending their mandibles in a series of yawning like motions 
when standing upon the land, I have regarded the other as 
essentially a sort of meaningless diversion. Perhays to rinse 
out the gular pouch. I am confident I could not have 
been mistaken, as my observations were made when the birds 
were under the most favorable circumstances for being 
observed, and I have employed a superior field glass while 
perfectly concealed from their sight. Whether seizing a 
minnow, or a pickerel weighing three and a half pounds, as in 
one instance, the fish is grasped transversely, when it’is 
tossed into the air and invariably received with its head fore- 
most in its descent into the pouch. 
The sac, or pouch, is a temporary repository in which the 
food is retained for a longer or shorter period as required for 
supples for digestion. 'The gular sac has no element of ‘‘a 
dip-net for catching prey”, having no outlet for the water 
“shipped,” not even the pectinated rami of the bill of several 
species of ducks. They are well known to seize great quanti- 
ties of fish upon occasion, and it is equally well known that 
their stomachs are relatively exceptionally small. The sac is 
therefore an inexorable necessity for transportation in their 
prolonged flights over frozen lakes and rivers, and has been 
found on repeated occasions in possession of from one to several 
fishes. One at least of the purposes of the sac cannot be 
questioned. 
In the latter part of May the old nests are slightly repaired 
or added to of such materials as are easily obtained, and the 
three to four eggs laid. They are very rudimentary, consist- 
ing usually of dirt scraped together and overlaid with coarse 
reeds, moss, &c., and are located quite near each other in close 
