168 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



flock disporting in a little pond. They are remarkably quick, 

 and are at least as diflBcult to shoot on the water as the 

 Bufl3e-head. In my boyhood days, when these birds were 

 abundant, I fired at the members of a flock in a little pond 

 until my gun-barrels were hot and my shells exhausted, with- 

 out inflicting much damage to the Ducks. They will often 

 remain in a pond until killed or so harassed that they are 

 forced to fly, when they patter and splash along the water for 

 a few feet before they can rise, although they rise readily from 

 the shore. Sometimes when frightened or wounded they dive 

 and hide in the water grass or sedge. The Ruddy Duck 

 breeds normally in Massachusetts. Young birds, not able to 

 fly, have been shot on Cape Cod,^ and the bird has been taken 

 in the breeding season at Cohasset, Wakefield and on the 

 Charles River near Watertown. It has been taken in New 

 Hampshire, also, in breeding plumage. It has been reported 

 with young in the breeding season in New York, and as breed- 

 ing in Washington County, Me. 



It feeds largely on the roots and bulbs of aquatic plants. 

 On the salt marsh it takes small univalve shell-fish. 



1 Miller, G. S., Jr.: Auk, 1891, p. 117. See also Deane, Ruthven Am. Nat., 1874, Vol. Vm, 

 pp. 433, 434. 



