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INDIAN DUCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. 215 
Greenland. Seebohm remarks: “ The Goosander immediately avails 
itself of the wooden boxes which the Finns fasten up in the trees to 
tempt them. These boxes are made with a trapdoor behind, so that the 
peasant may daily rob the nest and thus make the too-confiding 
bird lay a score or more eggs,” 
Sometimes, however, the nest is made on the ground. Thus Dresser: 
“In Uleaborg I obtained eggs from nests on the ground, in a hollow 
scratched out and filled with down.” Again Dybowski, writing of its 
nidification in Southern Siberia, says: ‘It nests on the ground 
amongst the grass, building witk dry grass and lining the interior 
thoroughly with down.” 
The bird isa very close sitter and most affectionate mother. Dr. 
Leverkiihn writes to me: “ Merganser castor,—Four times I found this 
beautiful bird breeding in North Germany and Finland; the nests 
were placed in holes in old trees, once in a public garden in the 
vicinity of a small town. The female bird was on the eggs and 
did not like to relinquish them, although we made much 
noise by siriking with cur sticks against the tree. In the 
end I climbed up to the hole and attempted to capture the 
bird with my hand, covered by a stout glove, bat the bird attacked me 
so energetically that she made the blood run from my hand and I was 
forced to retire. I returned the following day with two friends and 
a complicated machine for taking the bird, but on our approach, we 
were very much disappointed to find the hole empty, without bird or 
egos. The whole hollow was filled by a mass of downy feathers, quite 
sufficient to make a pillow.” 
¢ On a melancholy lake, in the midst of Finland, I once observed a 
female with 13 chicks who climbed about on the back, and even on 
the head, of their mother, probably being tired by the, as yet little 
used, art of swimming.” 
Several other observers have seen the female Goosander carrying her 
ducklings in this manner. 
Booth notes one thing which I should not pass over ; he says, “ From 
time to time a portion of the brood turn over on their backs, remain- 
ing often in this position for several seconds.” Most of us know 
the unhappy result if'atame duckling has the misfortune to tumble 
over on its back, 
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