WOOD DUCK— SUMMER DUCK. 41 



tween the eye and bill a deep green, — so gorgeous in 

 the sun's bright rays that it looks highly polished and 

 seems to cast off sparks of variegated colors, as it merges 

 into purple and runs down his neck, exposing a throat 

 of purest whiteness. Then we notice his back of red- 

 dish brown ; the rump of similar color tinged with 

 green ; then greenish black, and then his plumage runs 

 from dense black 'to purest white, combining all the 

 coloring imaginable, and adding to these tinges light 

 and dark shades, and reflected shadows that are simply 

 indescribable, — ^I have often looked at a rainbow, with 

 all the perfect and beautiful colors known to Nature, and 

 yet it seems to me that a Summer duck has them all. 

 Has the reader eyer seen the Summer ducks at home 

 raising their broods ? If you have, and studied them 

 unseen, or unheard, watching them in their wild free- 

 dom, showing their peculiar traits, tenderly guarding 

 their young on a summer's afternoon, while you lay 

 full length in the grass, securely hidden, watching with 

 growing interest each movement, entranced by the 

 scene, completely carried away with the changing 

 beauty, and the brilliant plumage of 'the birds, you will 

 know why I admire the Summer duck. 



Their flight through the woods is very swift, and at 

 dusk they move from place to place, darting rapidly 

 among the trees. Tn marshy places, they are found in 

 little open spots, around brush piles and muskrat houses. 

 They are good eating, but afford me the more pleasure 

 seeing them in the woods, and I never shoot them un- 

 less there are no other ducks to be found. 



The Wood Duck or Summer Duck ; Adult Male .-— 

 Bill, shorter than the head, deeper than broad at the 

 base, depressed toward the end, slightly narrowed to- 



