WATER BIRDS. 109 
serve to identify this species in any plumage. When swimming its habit 
of carrying the tail erect, almost like a hen, often aids in its recognition. 
Distribution.—North America in general, south to the West Indies and 
through Central America to Columbia; breeds throughout much of its 
North American range and south to Guatemala. 
The Ruddy Duck is one of the best known of the smaller ducks, its 
familiarity, its numbers, and the manner in which it avoids the sportsman 
by diving, having made it familiar even to the youngest Nimrod, and it 
Fig. 29. Ruddy Duck. 
Irom photograph of mounted specimen. (Original.) 
has received more or less appropriate and distinctive names in all parts 
of the country. Trumbull in his ‘Names and Portraits of Birds” lists 
sixty-seven common synonyms for it, and doubtless there are others in 
common use which that writer did not happen upon. 
This little duck comes to us in large numbers from the north in October, 
passes southward before the lakes freeze over, and returns to us again in April. 
While here it frequents ponds, streams and large and small lakes wherever 
suitable food is to be found. It is largely vegetarian in its diet and secures 
most of its food by diving. It is one of the species most often seen on 
protected ponds, particularly in parks and on reservoirs, where it doubtless 
does a large amount of good by eating the seeds and bulbs of water plants 
which might otherwise decay and pollute the water. I once took from the 
crop and stomach of a single Ruddy Duck at Middletown, Connecticut, 
22,000 seeds of. a species of pondweed (Navas) which at that time was 
growing in great abundance in the city reservoir, where the bird was shot. 
Much difference of opinion exists as to the table quality of this duck, 
many writers averring that its flesh is coarse, tough and fishy. My own 
experience is just the reverse of this, and I have found the bird in 
autumn uniformly tender and well flavored. The birds scatter some- 
what in feeding, and, as they are commonly found in flocks of con- 
siderable size, some are always on the surface serving as sentinels while 
the others are feeding below. In flight they keep well together in compact 
