A Bird's- Eye View 



or two others inconspicuously marked, I do 

 not recall a single instance of it. The wood 

 duck, harlequin, and various teals are among 

 the handsomest. In migration, ducks com- 

 monly spend the day on the water quite far out 

 from shore, but at night come to land along 

 some inlet, where they can be best approached 

 in the early morning before they fly. 



For the field ornithologist perhaps no other 

 family of American birds has so evident a clas- 

 sification, which I will briefly state. 



From their habits and habitat they fall into 

 three distinct groups, viz., river ducks, sea 

 ducks, and fishing ducks or mergansers. 



River ducks, as the name implies, chiefly 

 frequent fresh-water streams and lakes, and 

 principally subsist upon aquatic herbage, with 

 very little animal food. As a consequence, 

 this group, which naturally includes all the 

 smaller and more delicate kinds, such as teals 

 and widgeons, together with the domesticated 

 sorts, afford fine eating. The breeding range 

 of this group, consistently with their greater 

 delicacy, is more southerly than that of sea 

 ducks, and many of them breed extensively 

 throughout the United States. 



Sea ducks are mostly found along the coast, 



8S 



