HARLEQUIN DUCK. fil3 



the neighbourhood of which they were known to alight at certain hours 

 of the day, to bask in the sun and dress their plumage. On these occa- 

 sions a shot seldom failed to kill several, for they fly compactly and alight 

 •close together. 



On the 31st of May 1833, I found them breeding on White Head 

 Island, and other much smaller places of a similar nature, in the same 

 part of the Bay of Fundy. There they place their nests under the bushes 

 or amid the grass, at the distance of twenty or thirty yards from the 

 water. Farther north, in Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, they 

 remove from the sea, and betake themselves to small lakes a mile or so in 

 the interior, on the margins of which they form their nests beneath the 

 bushes next to the water. 



The nest is composed of dry plants of various kinds, arranged in a 

 circular manner to the height of two or three inches, and lined with finer 

 grasses. The eggs are five or six, rarely more, measure two inches and 

 one-sixteenth by one inch and four-and-a-half eighths, and are of a plain 

 greenish-yellow colour. These measurements differ a little from those of 

 an egg sent to me by my friend Mr Hewitson of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, (^ 



and which had been found in Ireland by Mr Atkinson. After the eggs ifjlXO^'^ 

 are laid, the female plucks the down from the lower parts of her body, 7 

 and places it beneath and around them, in the same manner as the Eider 

 Duck and other species of this tribe. The male leaves her to perform the 

 arduous, but no doubt to her pleasant, task of hatching and rearing the 

 brood, and, joining his idle companions, returns to the sea-shore, where he 

 moults in July and August. The little ones leave the nest a i&\N hours 

 after they burst the shell, and follow their mother to the water, where she 

 leads them about with the greatest care and anxiety. When about a week 

 old she walks with them to the sea, where they continue, in the same man- 

 ner as the Eiders. When discovered in one of these small inland lakes, 

 the mother emits a lisping note of admonition, on which she and the 

 young dive at once, and the latter make for the shores, where they con- 

 ceal themselves, while the former rises at a good distance, and imme- 

 diately taking to wing, leaves the place for a while. On searching along 

 the shores for the young, we observed that, on being approached, they 

 ran to the water and dived towards the opposite side, continuing their en- 

 deavours thus to escape, until so fatigued that we caught four out of six, 

 When at sea, they are as difficult to be caught as the young Eiders. 



The flight of the Harlequin Duck is rapid and generally straight. At 



