430 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



pairs are scattered up and down the small pools, whilst the 

 larger sheets of water are the haunt of perhaps a dozen or twenty 

 pairs. The breeding season commences at the end of May or 

 early in June, and fresh eggs may be obtained throughout the 

 latter month and the first half of July. The nest is usually placed 

 in some sheltered nook, often among willow and birch scrub, 

 in the drifted rubbish left by the floods when the big northern 

 rivers break up in spring, or among long grass. An island is 

 usually selected when available in the lake or pool. The nest 

 is merely a hollow among the herbage, plentifully lined with down 

 and a few feathers from the body of the female. The eggs are 

 from seven to twelve in number, eight or nine being an average 

 clutch. They are pale bufifish green or greenish buff in colour, 

 smooth, and with some gloss, and measure on an average 2'i inches 

 in length by i -5 inch in breadth. Down tufts small, warm brown 

 in colour, and without any white tips. Period of incubation 

 unknown. It is a noteworthy fact that the drake of this species 

 assists the duck in bringing up the young, moulting much earlier 

 than is usual in this group into his post-nuptial plumage, and 

 remaining in this garb until the brood can fly. During the 

 breeding season this Duck is very tame and most unwilling to 

 take wing, generally swimming out into the centre of the large 

 lakes for security. When the brood of ducklings is menaced, 

 the female tries to get her offspring to follow her out into the 

 open water, and is said to display great anxiety for their safety. 

 Only one brood is reared in the year. 



Diagnostic Characters.— (Nuptial plumage), FuUgula, with 

 the prevailing colour of the head and neck white (but with an oval 

 patch of brown on each side of the latter), with the tail (of 14 

 feathers) white, except the two central feathers, which are black and 

 about 5 inches longer than the rest, and with the scapulary region 

 striped with white (adult male) ; with the axillaries brown, with 

 the sides of the head white, and the sides of the neck brown 

 (adult female). Length, 22 to 26 inches inclusive of tail in 

 male. 



