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ANAS PENELOPE 
few yards of the water, w'hen they spread out and take the surface as lightly as Teal. 
On the wing they perform extraordinary evolutions and their long sharp wings, 
together with the short secondaries evidently give them great speed. When in full 
flight overhead a peculiar fluttering noise is continually heard, due to the fact, as 
Heinroth (1911) explains, that one or another of the birds suddenly puts on the 
brakes, so to speak, by erecting itself and turning the lower surface of the wings 
forw'ard, and beating against the air with them. One gets the impression that their 
own speed sometimes becomes too rapid for them. Aside from these fluttering 
noises and their whistling calls there is no sound from a flock except the rustling of a 
great mass of birds if they go by close to one. It is characteristic of Widgeon to fly 
in dense packs without any special formation when on local journeys. Even on very 
short flights the flocks may consist of several hundred birds, though forty or fifty 
or a hundred is more common. 
In fine weather Widgeon rise to a great height in the air, particularly when passing 
over dangerous points of land. Migration is performed chiefly at night, or very 
early in the morning, the flocks at such times thinning out into long wavy, irregular 
lines, sometimes broken here and there, and sometimes denser toward the center. 
These lines continually shift and change, and the more regular, gooselike type of 
flock is certainly exceptional. 
On favorite feeding grounds these birds will gather in enormous packs, sometimes 
numbering several thousands. But such congregations split into smaller groups 
when flushed or when changing ground. Millais thinks these huge companies occur 
more commonly after the birds have been driven about a good deal, and may be 
formed as a sort of mutual protection. 
Association with other Species. Although one of the most gregarious of all 
ducks, the Widgeon does not seem to relish particularly the company of other 
species. Of course single individuals or pairs are more likely to appear in flocks of 
other ducks, but it is quite remarkable that the scattering Widgeon which turn up 
mostly as single birds in northeastern Massachusetts, both Anas penelope and Afias 
americana, are almost always alone. 
Their aloofness is seen again on the nesting grounds, where their eggs are seldom 
found in nests of other species. Pintail eggs have been found in nests of the Widgeon 
in Iceland, with both females incubating at the same time (Slater, 1901), and they are 
said to nest occasionally there in protected Eider Duck colonies (Hantzsch, 1905). 
A very remarkable nest with eggs of Widgeon, Scaup, Long-tailed Ducks and Red- 
breasted Mergansers, was long ago recorded for Iceland by Kriiper (Naumann, 
1896-1905). 
They have been found seizing pond-weeds brought up by feeding Coots in the 
interior waters of Ireland (Ussher and Warren, 1900), and as they frequent the same 
