104 LONG-TAILED DUCK. 
nate enough to procure several of the young birds, and afterwards shot 
one of the old, which having young much smaller than the rest, was 
more anxious for their safety, and kept with them within shot. She 
and the young were afterwards put in rum, to be subsequently exa- 
mined. I counted eleven broods on the same pond, and Mr Jongs as- 
sured me that these birds always breed in numbers together, but rarely 
on the same lake two successive years. Their plumage was ragged, 
in so far as I could judge, and the individual which I shot was similar. 
They never dived while in my sight, but seemed constantly to urge 
their young to do so, and the little things so profited by the advice of 
their parents, that had they remained in the water, instead of making, 
after a while, for the land, I believe I should not have succeeded, after 
all my exertions, in capturing a single one of them. 
The gentleman above mentioned informed me that the old birds 
keep the young in the ponds until they are quite able to fly, or until 
the end of August, when the flocks remove on wing to the sea, and 
soon after leave the coast, seldom reappearing before the first days of 
May, or about two weeks before most other kinds of ducks. The little 
ones which I procured, were as you see them represented in my plate. 
Those that were larger were of the same colour, and none shewed any 
feathers on their bodies. Now and then, like all other young ducks, 
they would skim over the surface of the water with astonishing ra- 
pidity, emitting a sharp note somewhat resembling the syllables pee, 
pee, pee, and would then dive with the quickness of thought. When 
squatted among the moss, they allowed me to take them without ma- 
king any attempt to escape. The young were put in a tub, and had 
some soaked biscuit placed near them; but they were all found dead 
the next morning. 
‘The range of this noisy, lively, and beautiful duck, extends along 
our coast as far south as Texas, and it is also found at the mouth 
of the Columbia River; but the species is never found on any of 
our fresh-water courses, and Iam quite confident that Mr Say mistook 
for it the Pintail Duck, Anas acuta, when he says that he found it on 
the waters of the Missouri. During all my residence in the neighbour- 
hood of the Mississippi, and in the course of all my journeys on and 
along its waters, I never saw one of these birds, or heard of any having 
occurred on that stream above its confluence with the Gulf of Mexico; 
whereas the Pintails are extremely abundant there, as well as on the 
