Among the Water Fowl 



twelve eggs, about to hatch. After photographing 

 them I replaced the l)Ough, and when I passed the 

 spot again two days later, scattered egg-shells told 

 of another brood added to the Duck-farm of the 

 Magdalen Islands. 



We had poor success in finding "Shell-ducks' " 

 nests — as the Mergansers are here locally called. 

 A boy found an incomplete set under a spruce tree 

 in the woods, and a dog broke up a couple of simi- 

 larly placed nests on a densely spruce-grown island, 

 but all I found was that one egg (mentioned above) . 

 Most of the females were still with their mates out 

 on the ponds, and evidently, this year at any rate, 

 incubation did not begin till July. Some of them 

 nest in the grass by the shores, but their general 

 practice is, I was told, to lay under the dense low 

 spruces, often well into the tangled woods, in 

 almost impenetrable thickets. Hence their nests 



are very hard to 

 find, even when 

 the birds are in- 

 cubating. They 

 are very abundant 

 on these islands. 

 The eggs are of 

 a drab color, a 

 little lighter than 

 those of the 

 Scaups, and quite 

 shiny. Their rel- 

 atives, the Goosander and the Hooded Merganser, 

 as well as the American Golden -eye, are said to 

 breed in the eastern Provinces and in Maine, all 



' I LIFTED THE BOUGH. AND THERE WERE TWELVE 

 EGGS, ABOUT TO HATCH." NEST OF BLUE-WINGED 

 TEAL, MAGDALEN ISLANDS 



2IO 



