572 AIX SPONSA, WOOD DUCK. 



United States than any other, and is further notable for furnishing a 

 conspicuous exception to the general rule that Ducks nest on the 

 ground : for it breeds in trees. The following account of Audubon's of 

 the nidification of the species, its most interesting peculiarity, leaves 

 little to be desired : \ 



" The Wood Duck breeds in the Middle States about the beginning 

 of April, in Massachusetts a month later, and in Xova Scotia, or on our 

 northern lakes, seldom before the first days of June. In Louisiana and 

 Kentucky, where 1 have had better opportunities of studying their 

 habits in this respect, they generally pair about the first of March, 

 sometimes a fortnight earlier. I never knew one of these birds to form 

 a nest on the ground, or on the branches of a tree. They appear at all 

 times to prefer the hollow, broken portion of some large branch, the 

 hole of our large Woodpecker (Picus principalis), or the deserted retreat 

 of the fox squirrel ; and I have frequently been surprised to see them 

 go in and out of a hole of any one of these, when their bodies while on 

 •wing seemed to be nearly half as large again as the aperture within 

 ■which they had deposited their eggs. Once only I found a nest (with 

 ten eggs) in the fissure of a rock, on the Kentucky Eiver, a few miles 

 below Frankfort. Generally, however, the holes to which they betake 

 themselves are either over deep swamps, above cane-brakes, or on 

 broken branches of high sycamores, seldom more than forty or fifty 

 feet from the water. They are much attached to their breeding-places, 

 and for three successive years I found a ijair near Henderson, in Ken- 

 tucky, with the eggs, in the beginning of April, in the abandoned nest 

 of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The eggs, which are from six to fifteen, 

 according to the age of the bird, are placed on dry plants, feathers, and 

 a scanty portion of down, which I believe is mostly plucked from the 

 breast of the female. They are jierfectly smooth, nearly elliptical, of a 

 light color, between buff and pale green, two inches in length by one 

 and a half in diameter. 



" No sooner has the female completed her set of eggs than she is 

 abandoned by her mate, who now joins others, which form themselves 

 into considerable flocks, and thus remain apart till the young are able 

 to fly, when old and young of both sexes come together, and so remain 

 until the commencement of the next breeding season. In all the nests 

 I have examined I have been rather surprised to find a quantity of 

 feathers belonging to birds of other species, even those of the domestic 

 fowls, and particularly those of the Wild Goose and Wild Turkey. On 

 coming on a nest with eggs when the bird was absent in search of food, 

 I have always found the eggs covered over with feathers and down, 

 although quite out of sight, in the depth of a Woodpecker's or squirrel's 

 hole. On the contrary, when the nest was placed on the broken branch 

 of a tree, it could easily be observed from the ground, on account of the 

 feathers, dead sticks, and withered grasses about it. If the nest is 

 placed immediately over the water, the young, the moment they are 

 hatched, scramble to the mouth of the hole, launch into the air with 

 their little wings and feet spread out, and drop into their favorite 

 element ; but whenever their birth- place is some distance from it, the 

 mother carries them to it one by one in her bill, holding them so as not 

 to injure their yet tender frame. On several occasions, however, when 

 the hole was thirty, forty, or more yards from a bayou or other piece of 

 water, I observed that the mother suffered the young to fall on the 

 grasses and dried leaves beneath the tree, and afterward led them 

 directly to the nearest edge of the next pool or creek. At this early 

 age, the young answer to their parents' call with a mellow pee, pee, pee-e, 



