Hunting Duck Eggs in the Marshes of Lake Manitoba. 357


In this sort of work things happen suddenly when they

happen at all. With long boots pulled up for protection, we beat

it ” along' for some distance, when things began to happen, and with

celerity. Suddenly a blue-winged teal sprang into the air only ten

feet ahead of us. As we searched for the nest in the thick growth,

the assistant made a surprising discovery. He saw two big flesh-

coloured eggs buried in the black mud, with just the upper sides

projecting.


I thought at first, as we dug them out, that they must be old

eggs, left over from last year. Then, as I got them into view, I saw

my mistake. They were fresh scoters’ eggs, and this was the habit

of the bird, as I had previously learned, to bury the eggs in the

ground till the set was nearly complete. Then the duck builds her

nest and lines it with down plucked from her breast. Such buried

eggs as I had previously found were always in dry soil.


Putting the eggs back, we soon found the teal’s nest a few feet

away with only four fresh eggs, an incomplete set. The nest was a

mere depression with a few weed-stems, the downy lining as yet not

being added. These nests we marked by tying knots in the reeds.

Hardly had we started on when up sprang another duck, almost in

my face. Its brown neck, white wing-bars, and moderate size

proclaimed it a lesser scaup. The dark olive-brown eggs she left

bore out the identification. Holding up to the light one of the nine,

I saw that the degree of incubation was moderate, probably about

ten days. This nest we also marked and left, as it was our plan to

postpone as long as possible being tied up in camp with incubators to

watch.


After this we had quite a tramp before finding anything else,

almost out to the other bay. There the guide had previously flushed

a pintail from her nest on the hank as he paddled past. Though it

proved to be empty I hardly had time to grieve before I almost

stepped on a pintail on her nest, only a few feet from the original

site. She had evidently been robbed, and started a new set close by

There were but four eggs, a fresh incomplete set.


I have found that ducks frequently nest in groups or colonies.

This was again borne out when, only a few yards beyond this spot,

we flushed another blue-winged teal from a set of eleven. Little



