416 FEATHERED GAME 
of dead stubs, and in traveling about among 
the branches it is equally expert with our Sum- 
mer Duck. 
This Merganser breeds all through the United 
States and northward, wintering from the Mid- 
dle States south to the Gulf of Mexico. The 
nest ready for the hatching contains from six 
to eight buff-colored eggs. When the infants 
are old enough, if the nest is distant from pond 
or stream, the mother bird carries them in her 
beak and puts them down on the edges of the 
water one after another, until her brood is at 
the new home where she plans to put the fin- 
ishing touches to their education. 
Their life, like that of most ducklings, is a 
most uncertain affair, likely to be terminated 
at any minute by the sudden snap of hungry 
mink or predatory hawk—even the finny 
dweller of the pond showing an appreciative 
taste in the direction of tender young ducks. 
But the baby Shelldrake of either species is far 
and away more lively and better able to take 
care of himself than is any other young duck of 
his age, and when he gets his growth will avenge 
his family’s wrongs upon the enemy, whether 
