82 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CAN4DA. 



page 315) are probably hybrids between black ducks used as decoys 

 and domestic ducks. Mr. Jolin Marshall of the Geological Survey, 

 however, has occasionally shot ducks below Ottawa late in October 

 which he says are undoubtedly the bird described by Brewster. 



XLVII. CHAULELASMUS Bonaparte. 1838 

 135. Gadwell. Grey Duck, 



Chaulelasmus strepertis (Linn.) Bonap. i 838 



This species is rarely seen during the migration along the Atlantic 

 coast; it is also rare in Quebec and Ontario, and Mcllwraith says 

 that the pair in his collection are the only ones he has heard of being 

 taken in the latter province, though the bird has been shot at Ottawa 

 by Mr. W. F. Whitcher, and Fleming records it as a rare migrant at 

 Toronto. 



Mcllwraith in his "Birds of Ontario," page 70, seems to doubt 

 my statement that they are "abundant throughout the interior." 

 He says they are nowhere abundant and no person has made that 

 statement but myself. Dr. Elliott Coues, in writing of the birds 

 observed by him on the International boundary says: "Abun- 

 dant throughout the region, where it breeds, like nearly all the 

 AnatifUB. Young still unfledged were observed late in Augfust." 

 I found them abundant on the prairie in 1880, but in the wooded 

 country in 1881 shot only one specimen. This is the species that 

 breeds almost exclusively in the prairie region, and more than half 

 the nests seen in 1895 in making a traverse from the boundary of 

 Manitoba to the Rocky mountains were of this species. This and 

 the lesser scaup were the common ducks of the southern prairie. 

 Richardson says it breeds in numbers to lat. 68°, and Macfarlane 

 says he beUeves it breeds as far north as Anderson river. One 

 specimen was taken by Preble at Fort Churchill, Hudson bay and a 

 few by Spreadborough between Lesser Slave lake and Peace River 

 Landing, Atha. 



It is generally a rare bird in Alaska and British Columbia, but 

 Turner reports it common in summer in the Yukon delta. 



Breeding Notes. — A pair of this species reached Deep lake, 

 Indian Head, Sask., on April i8th, 1892, and by May 6th they were 

 common; on June 24th found a nest on a small island in the lake, 

 containing eight eggs. It was made of dry grass lined with 

 down from the female's own breast. In 1 895, nests of this species were 

 taken at Twelve-mile lake, near Wood mountain, Sask., on neju 



