Among the Water Fowl 



necks. Great birds they were, and too wary to 

 be approached. 



From here we drove northwest, away up to the 

 international boundary, exploring some large lakes 

 eastward from the Turtle Mountain region. On the 

 30th of May we reached Rock Lake and pitched the 

 tent on the prairie close to the stony shore. By this 

 time more of the Ducks had laid. I was particu- 

 larly fortunate there in finding Blue-winged Teals' 

 nests. The morning after our arrival I was rowing 

 on the lake, and happened to land on a sort of pen- 

 insula formed on one side by a marshy bayou. The 

 land was broken and rolling, but near the shore it 

 was flat, almost marshy, and covered with very pro- 

 fuse dry grass of the previous year's growth that 

 had escaped the prairie fires. My companion al- 

 most trod on a Western Meadow Lark that left her 

 arched nest in the grass and six eggs for our inspec- 

 tion. Just after this I was returning to the boat, 

 when — spring, flutter — away went a Blue-winged 

 Teal from the long grass at my very feet. It took 

 me but a second to reach the spot, and, parting the 

 grass, I gazed into my first Teal's nest, with its ten 

 small, creamy eggs, well spattered with excrement, 

 which the bird dropped as she ffew. I afterwards 

 found that this last is the usual occurrence when a 

 Duck is surprised and flushed from her eggs. This 

 nest was well down in the thick dry grass, and would 

 have been practically impossible to discover without 

 flushing the bird. It was built in a hollow in the 

 ground, of dry grass, with which the abundant dark 

 gray down that lined it was more or less mixed. 



After a few minutes we started on again, and 



180 



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