The Water-fowl of the Pacific Coast 529 



merits, is little better off until schooled by many 

 a day of disappointment. 



OCCASIONAL DUCKS 



Like most parts of the East, the Pacific Coast 

 abounds in ducks rarely found in sufficient num- 

 bers to • make special shooting even where large 

 enough, but which mixed with other ducks are 

 sometimes worth shooting. But some ducks seem 

 wholly wanting here or, if on the coast at all, are 

 very rare and remain most of the time in the 

 North. Such is the black or dusky duck, such 

 a fine bird on the Atlantic Coast. The golden- 

 eye, a good duck on certain kinds of feed, I have 

 never seen here and cannot find any one who has, 

 though it would be strange if a duck so widely 

 distributed were completely missing on this whole 

 coast. As ducks from the great basin between 

 the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada go 

 down the Colorado each winter, and as it is but 

 a short flight across from the Rio Grande, and, 

 for a duck, no trip from there to the head waters 

 of many streams leading into the Gulf of Mexico, 

 and as most of the ducks at the mouth of the 

 Colorado summer on the Pacific Coast, returning 

 by way of Cape St. Lucas, or crossing the moun- 

 tain ranges of southern California, it would be 

 strange if all the inland ducks of the United 

 States were not represented in some way on this 



