206 Life and Immortality. 
Ki 
MARTHA 
1" Ostet 
ii 
SUMMER DUCKS AND YOUNG. 
Female Carrying Young in Her Bill from Nest in Hollow Tree. 
to spread their ill-feathered pinions and oar-like feet and 
fling themselves down, a feat which can be performed without 
jeopardy to life or limb. 
Almost any tree, or tree-branch, containing the essential 
hollow, and suitably located, is utilized. Broken branches 
of high sycamores, seldom more than forty or fifty feet from 
water, are,according to Audubon, favorite places, while Wilson 
claims to have met the home of a pair of these birds in a 
fork composed of branches, and built out of a few rude 
sticks. In the South, the forsaken retreat of the gray 
squirrel and the hole of the ivory-billed woodpecker are 
common nesting-places. Often the entrance to the nest is 
apparently so small when compared with the bulk of the 
occupant that it is a matter of surprise to many that she can 
