204 AMERICAN GAME. 
from its native haunts. I think, however, that in the 
United States it is perhaps better known under its other 
appellation of Wood Duck ; and I am not prepared to 
say, although the former is the specific name adopted by 
all naturalists, that the latter is not the better, as the 
more distinctive title, and applying to a more remarka- 
ble peculiarity of the bird. For it, alone, so far as I 
know, of the Duck family, is in the habit of perching 
and roosting on the. upper branches of tall trees, near 
water-courses, and of making its nest in the holes and 
hollows of old trunks, overhanging sequestered streams 
or woodland pools, often at a great height above the sur- 
face of the water. 
The Summer Duck is the most gayly attired of the 
whole family ; it has, moreover, a form of very unusual 
elegance, as compared with other ducks; and a facility 
of flight, and a command of itself on the wing, most un- 
like to the ponderous, angular flapping of the rest of its 
tribe, wheeling with a rapidity and power of pinion, ap- 
proaching in some degree to that of the swallow, in and 
out among the branches of the gnarled and tortuous pin- 
oaks, whose shelter it especially affects. 
. From two very fine specimens, male and .female, now 
before me, I take the following description : 
Drake, in full summer plumage. Length from tip of 
bill to tip of tail, 21 inches. Length of wing, 9 inches. 
Bill, 11-5inch. Tarsus, 14. Middle toe, 2 inches. Body 
long, delicately shaped, rounded. Head small, finely 
