34 WOOD DUCK. 



The Wood Duck breeds in the Middle States about the beginning of 

 April, in Massachusetts a month later, and in Nova Scotia or on our 

 northern lakes, seldom before the first days of June. In Louisiana and 

 Kentucky, where I have had better opportunities of studying their habits 

 in this respect, they generally pair about the 1st of March, sometimes a 

 fortnight earlier. I never knew one of these birds to form a nest on the 

 ground, or on the branches of a tree. They appear at all times to pre- 

 fer the hollow broken portion of some large branch, the hole of our 

 largest Woodpecker (Picus principalis), or the deserted retreat of the 

 fox-squirrel; and I have frequently been surprised to see them go in 

 and out of a hole of any one of these, when their bodies while on wing 

 seemed to be nearly half as large again as the aperture within which they 

 had deposited their eggs. Once only I found a nest (with ten eggs) in 

 the fissure of a rock on the Kentucky River a few miles below Frankfort. 

 Generally, however, the holes to which they betake themselves ai-e either 

 over deep swamps, above cane brakes, or broken branches of high syca- 

 mores, seldom more than forty or fifty feet from the water. They are 

 much attached to their breeding-places, and for three successive years I 

 found a pair near Henderson, in Kentucky, with eggs in the beginning 

 of April, in the abandoned nest of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The 

 eggs, which are from six to fifteen, according to the age of the bird, are 

 placed on dry plants, feathers, and a scanty portion of down, which I be- 

 lieve is mostly plucked from the breast of the female. They are perfectly 

 smooth, nearly elliptical, of a light colour between buff and pale green, 

 two inches in length by one and a half in diameter ; the shell is about 

 equal in firmness to that of the Mallard's e^g, and quite smooth. 



No sooner has the female completed her set of eggs than she is aban- 

 doned by her mate, who now joins others, which form themselves into 

 considerable flocks, and thus remain apart until the young are able to fly, 

 when old and young of both sexes come together, and so remain until the 

 commencement of the next breeding season. In all the nests which I 

 have examined, I have been rather surprised to find a quantity of feathers 

 belonging to birds of other species, even those of the domestic fowl, and 

 particularly of the wild goose and wild turkey. On coming upon a nest 

 with eggs when the bird was absent in search of food, I have always found 

 the eggs covered over with feathers and down, although quite out of 

 sigiit, in the depth of a woodpecker"'s or squirrel's hole. On the contrary, 

 when the nest was placed in the broken branch of a tree, it could easily 



