38 NOTES ON THE 
southward. According to Mr. Washburn, this species is very 
common at Lake Mille Lacs, and Dead lake. Dr. Hvoslef 
finds them in February at Lanesboro, Fillmore county, in open 
places in the Root river. Mr. Edward A. Everett, of Waseca, 
reports them in January. Indeed, there are no sections where 
the birds have been looked after by competent observers which 
do not give reports of the Hooded Merganser. It must not be 
inferred that they are as numerous a species as some others 
breeding here, but they may be said to be common residents, 
large numbers of which go further north still to breed and 
further south to winter. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Head with an elongated, compressed, circular crest; anterior 
extremity of nostril reaching not quite as far as the middle of 
the commissure; frontal feathers extending nearly as far as 
half the distance from the lateral feathers to the nostril; the 
latter much beyond the feathers on the side of the lower mandi- 
ble. Billshorter than head. Bill, head, neck, and back, black; 
center of crest and under parts white; sides chestnut-brown, 
barred with black; anterior to the wing white, crossed by two 
black crescents; lesser coverts gray; speculum white with a 
basel and median-black bar; tertials black, streaked with white 
centrally. 
Length, 17.50; wing, 8; tarsus, 1.20; commissure, 2. 
Habitat, North America generally. 
ANAS BOSCHAS L. (432. ) 
MALLARD. 
When the comfortless days of March have long delayed the 
departure of the winter, and the great lakes, and the little ones 
too, begin to show a liquid margin into which sundry reptiles 
and fishes have come to catch the first warm rays of the ad- 
vancing sun, we look for the ducks to return, and first of all 
generally, the Mallards. And should a sharp thaw be attended 
by a warm rain, we never look in vain. The avaunt couriers 
consisting of members of this species will more than likely 
form the largest flock of the entire season, and will come along 
the cloudy curtains of the horizon after the manner of wild 
geese, but with less of the wedge-shaped order of flight of the 
latter and their ostentatious honkings. Sweeping around in 
circles, the radius of which is many miles in extent, examining 
the various streams and lakes for the larger openings in the 
ice, they suddenly dip down to one as if to alight, when as ab- 
ruptly they rise again and sweep away to another with a few 
