THE RED-HEAD 329 
more strictly to be termed ‘‘sea ducks,’’ and 
somewhat contemptuously called ‘‘trash ducks’’ 
or even ‘‘flying fishes,’? by the more aristo- 
cratic among) wildfowlers. 
This is one of the commonest of the ducks 
in the wild rice sloughs of the West, and it is 
often shot in the immense corn- and grain- 
fields of those sections, which they visit to feed 
upon the ripened seeds. They will fly long dis- 
tances to get a corn dinner. Though, when it 
may choose, the Red-head is a vegetable feeder, 
if a breakfast of this sort is not to be had the 
bird will content itself with a meal of young 
frogs or tadpoles if it can find them. He is 
mainly a diving fowl and a bottom feeder, espe- 
cially so in the waters of the northeast, where 
as a rule we know him as a salt water dweller, 
or at least a bird of the river mouths. 
They arrive in these latitudes during late 
September or October, staying until the increas- 
ing cold has effectually closed all fresh water 
for the winter, when they come into the coast 
waters, working their way southward to remain 
until the spring sunshine opens again their 
feeding grounds in the north. This species is 
more numerous on the eastern half of our con- 
