THE SUMMER DUCK. 207 
yellow; belly, vent and under tail-coverts white, flanks 
and thighs dull brown. 
The young males of the first season are scarcely dis- 
tinguishable from the ducks. 
The Summer Duck breeds, in New York and New 
Jersey, according to the season, from early in April until 
late in May; in July the young birds are not much infe- 
rior in size to the parents, though not yet very strong on 
the wing. I well remember on one occasion, during the 
second week of that month, in the year 1836, while out 
woodcock shooting near Warwick, in Orange county, 
New York, with a steady brace of setters, how some 
mowers who were at work on the banks of the beautiful 
Wawayanda, hailed me, and, pointing to a patch of per- 
haps two acres of coarse, rushy grass, told me that six 
ducks had just gone down there. I called my dogs to 
heel, and walked very gingerly through the meadow, 
with finger on the trigger, expecting the birds to rise 
very wild; but to my great surprise reached the end of 
the grass, on the rivulet’s margin, without moving any 
thing. 
The men still persisted that the birds were there; and 
so they were, sure enough; for on bidding my setters 
hold up, I soon got six dead points in the grass, and not 
without some trouble kicked up the birds, so hard did 
they lay. It wasa calm, bright summer’s day, not a 
duck rose above ten feet from me, and I bagged them all. 
They proved to be the old duck and five young birds of 
