PINTAIL 
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exceeded there by several other species. Next to the Mallard and Lesser Scaup it is 
the commonest migrant in the Kansas City region (H. Harris, 1919). 
A great increase has been noted in the numbers now regularly breeding in our 
north-central States. Twenty or thirty years ago Hollister (1919) notes that in 
southeastern Wisconsin only Carolina Ducks were killed at the opening of the season, 
September 1. Now, Pintails regularly nest there, and fully fifty were reared on one 
pond. In North Dakota, Bent (1901-02) found this species the most abundant 
breeding duck, and as I recall, it is second only to the Blue-winged Teal on the plains 
of Montana early in September. As a breeder and early migrant in the Athabasca 
Delta the Pintail seems to rank only fourth, being exceeded by the Mallard, Golden- 
eye and Lesser Scaup (Harper, MS.). In the region about St. Michael’s, Alaska, it 
outnumbers all other ducks in the early autumn, perhaps even equaling all other 
ducks combined (Bishop, 1900; F. S. Hersey, 1917). Although it seems to be a rather 
rare bird along the Arctic coast of Alaska, this and the Long-tailed Duck are the 
commonest ducks on the Anderson River (MacFarlane, 1908). 
The ability of the Pintail to avoid the decoys of western Europe has become pro- 
verbial. Out of 95,836 ducks taken in the Ashby Decoy (Lincolnshire) between the 
years 1833 and 1868, only 278 were Pintails, and proportions like this, or an even 
greater discrepancy, are characteristic of all decoys where records have been kept. 
Although Millais (1902) considered it a rapidly increasing breeder in Scotland, 
recent writers describe the increase as exceedingly slow, and not to be compared to 
that of the Widgeon or the Shoveller (Baxter and Rintoul, 1921). It was first found 
nesting in Scotland at Loch Leven in 1898. As a winter visitor in the British Isles its 
status does not seem to have materially changed. 
Its status throughout the Palsearctic region is probably very similar to that in the 
Nearctic. Seebohm (1880a) noted it as the commonest duck at the mouth of the 
Petchora in the breeding season, but exact information for this enormous region is 
so fragmentary that generalizations are impossible. 
Enemies. The ordinary enemies of the Pintail apparently differ in no way from 
those of the Mallard. H. C. Bryant (1914) found a great destruction of eggs during 
his survey of the breeding grounds in California and Oregon. But the percentage of 
nests destroyed after they had been found by him was probably much greater than 
among undisturbed nests. This is so true of the nests of our Ruffed Grouse that I 
think it must hold for other ground-nesting birds as well. The worst enemy in the 
tule-swamp regions of the Southwest seems to be the racoon. At Barr Lake, Colo- 
rado, a bull snake three feet nine inches long was found in a Pintail’s nest with an 
egg in its mouth. The observer was fortunate enough to get a photograph of the 
reptile before it disgorged the egg (Rockwell, 1911). 
On a low rocky islet in Lake Athabasca, Harper (MS.) found a Pintail’s nest close 
