194 
ANAS AMERICANA 
season. The main body, says Cooke (1906), arrives in the northern United States in early October, 
reaching the Middle Atlantic States about the middle of the same month. Some stay as late as the 
end of September in Alaska, the end of October in Ontario and early November in Alberta. 
Spring records for New England do occur, although they are rare. I have never seen but one pair in 
Massachusetts. The spring route is evidently not much farther west than the autumn route, for at 
Monroe, Michigan, during fifteen years they were killed regularly in fair numbers. 
Sporadic records show that Baldpates do straggle as far east as Harrington, north shore of the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence (H. F. Lewis, 1922), but it is a very rare bird in all of Canada east of the 
Great Lakes. 
GENERAL HABITS 
Haunts. The Baldpate is notoriously local and irregular in its distribution, even 
where it occurs in large numbers, as it does on Currituck Sound. In Massachusetts 
there seem to be but three sheets of w’ater suited to its needs, and here it remains 
until frozen out in the late autumn or early winter. It is not particularly a marsh 
duck, but depends upon large sheets of water, wLere pond-weeds {Potamogeton) and 
widgeon-grass {Ruppia) float on the surface or are not so deep that the bird cannot 
easily reach them. It is far more of a fresh-water bird than its European cousin, but 
this is perhaps due to the greater abundance of brackish and fresh-water sounds on 
our coast, rather than to any innate differences in the two species. As one goes 
south from Currituck to the salt sounds of Albemarle and Pamlico one finds fewer 
and fewer Widgeon, but where a large artificial lake has been constructed on Pea 
Island beach (North Carolina) the Widgeon and other fresh-water ducks appear 
regularly. They never seem to feed with the Brant, as the European Widgeon 
does. 
On the Pacific coast, w'here brackish lagoons are less abundant, the Baldpate is 
found, at least on migration, on the tidal flats of Puget Sound (W. L. Daw’son and 
Bowles, 1909) and in British Columbia. Major Allan Brooks, who is familiar wdth 
both the European and the American species, tells me that at Comox, British Co- 
lumbia, on the east coast of Vancouver Island, the wintering Widgeon w^ere just as 
maritime as their relatives on the tidal estuaries of the British Isles ; although he 
does not think that they prefer eel-grass (Zostera) to all other sea-plants. 
Identification of the Baldpate on the water is rather easy on account of the small 
head and bill, pale-rusty coloring (in the females and young) and (in the males) the 
presence of the white head-cap. In flight the deeply depressed wdngs on the down 
stroke, the snow-white breasts and the male’s whistled note are diagnostic. 
Wabiness. The Baldpate is rightly regarded as one of the wariest of shoal-water 
ducks, and one most uncertain in its behavior. Its habit of keeping in large flocks 
and of circling many times before alighting in any suspected locality gives it a much 
better opportunity than most ducks have of discovering the concealed hunter and 
