— Potes from Field and Stuay 
Ducks Increasing 
‘During the past winter, while cruising 
along the Florida coast in the performance 
of duty as inspector of lighthouses, I 
was impressed by the great numbers of 
Ducks seen in many places. In the months 
of January, February and March, rg10, 
at various times, I saw in Pensacola Bay, 
St. Andrew’s Bay,. St. George Sound, 
Tampa Bay, Charlotte Harbor, Key 
Biscayne Bay, and several other regions 
along the coast, flocks of Ducks that were 
remarkable for numbers. In Tampa Bay 
and in the upper end of Key Biscayne 
Bay, north of Miami, the flocks seen were 
really enormous, extending sometimes 
two or three miles along the surface of the 
water, and numbering tens of thousands 
of individuals, swimming and feeding close 
together. 
I cruised in these same waters the winter 
before and saw thousands of Ducks, but 
the greater numbers this past season was 
very noticeable. Residents, mostly light- 
house keepers and watermen, with whom 
I talked at all places visited, agreed that 
they had never before seen such huge 
flocks in their neighborhood. 
For the most part these were Blue- 
bills (Lesser Scaup), but I saw at different 
times and places, generally associated 
with the Bluebills, some Teal, Ring- 
necked Ducks, Canvasbacks, and the 
resident Florida Ducks. The Scaup Ducks 
are known locally in Florida as ‘Raft 
Ducks, but why I am unable to say. They 
Swim in very compact masses, and a flock 
of them some distance away looks some- 
what like a large raft of logs bound to- 
gether to be towed to a sawmill, and per- 
haps the resemblance suggests the name. 
The lateness of the season that some 
of these Ducks remain in Florida is note- 
worthy. Voyaging south from Pensacola 
in April, I saw in Choctawhatchie Bay, 
St. Joseph’s Bay, and in Apalachee Bay, 
near St. Mark’s, small groups of Lesser 
Scaups, aggregating from twenty or thirty 
to as many as one hundred at each place 
named. These may have been stragglers, 
left behind by the spring migration, but 
April rr, in the western end of Apalachi- 
cola Bay, I saw the same species in such 
numbers that the assumption that they 
were stragglers is unreasonable. I ob- 
served, a few miles apart, three separate 
flocks or “rafts” of these birds feeding 
in shoal water, and each flock contained 
from two thousand to three thousand 
individuals at the very lowest estimate.— 
Ff. M. Bennerr, Commander, U.S. Navy, 
Key West, Fla. 
The Grackle in Virginia 
In the center of the town of Pulaski, 
Virginia, there is a very beautiful lawn 
enclosed by a stone wall and shaded by a 
thick grove of maple and cottonwood 
trees, and in the center of this enclosure 
is located Maple Shade Inn. But the 
visitors to the grove are more interesting 
in many respects than the visitors to the 
hotel, and especially is this true of the 
Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula), a half dozen 
pairs of these birds finding asylum here 
each season for the raising of their young. 
But after the young ones are strong 
enough to fly well, a change begins to take 
place, and the birds all leave the grove 
early in the morning and return about 
sundown with increased numbers. This 
is kept up for many weeks until their 
numbers reach over a thousand. In 
leaving the grove in the morning, the 
greater part of the flock goes together 
and in a northeast direction, from which 
they never vary. On their return in the 
evening, the flock is very much more 
broken up into smaller flocks, but always 
returning by the same route. I have seen 
these birds eating dogwood berries in the 
woods four miles directly east of this place. 
Following the greater arc of the circle 
from east to northwest, there are moun- 
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