54 NOTES ON THE 
ducks of the commonwealth! In the denser portion of the vast 
forest which embraces the inlets and bays of many clear and 
beautiful lakes, I have cautiously sought a quiet covert toward 
the evening of a warm day, from which to observe this 
charming species in spring. Perfectly concealed in the 
thickets within a yard of the deeply shadowed water, with my 
field glass in hand, I have many times watched them by 
hundreds, until the darkness hid them from my sight. These 
occasions were in the season of their love, when the matchless | 
plumage of the males was displayed as at no other time in 
their entire history. With the crest elevated, and like a 
coronet on the head which is drawn backward as proudly as 
the swan’s, each male, an undisputed monarch of the mirror 
lake, glides here and there, in and out in his ingenious and’ 
undisguised endeavors to outdo every other in his imperial 
display, until the seething resplendence seems to be one 
moving scene of grace and indescribable beauty. During this 
wondrous. spectacular exhibition of motion, the woodland 
echoes have frequently borne away the characteristic and 
impassioned notes of the rival lovers, 0-0-0-eek, 0-0-0-eek. 
Thus completely concealed as I was they would approach me 
closer and closer as the shadows deepened until verily I could 
have touched the nearer birds with a coachman’s whip. 
At such times, by the aid of my constantly adjusted class, I 
could have numbered the very barbs of the primaries while they 
paused to redress a recreant feather. I have found the nest of - 
this duck as early as the 15th of April, yet I think the average 
of the nesting is not entered upon until about the 10th of May, 
or a little later. Irdeed, one instance came under my notice 
where the location was selected on the twenty-seventh of that 
month, but it is more than probable that the bird had been 
robbed of another of earlier date. That they rear two broods 
occasionally seems very certain from their being found at dif- 
ferent times with a young brood as late as July third, to the 
tenth of that month. The location and character of the nest» 
have been given by the quotation from Audubon. Those eggs 
which it has been my fortune to obtain have been pale green, 
buff colored, and variously from six to fourteen in number. 
Many flocks of this species linger until very late in the autumn. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Head and crest metallic green to below the eyes; the cheeks | 
and a stripe from behind the eyes purplish; a narrow, short 
line from the upper angle of the bill along the side of the 
crown, and through the crest, another on the upper eyelid; a 
