304 TKROUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN 



The mallard lays from six to eight eggs in a nest com- 

 posed of down and feathers from the female bird, placed 

 in a hole or depression in the ground, generally in close prox- 

 imity to small clumps or tufts of willow and scrub pine. 

 Egg samples were collected in various sections during our 

 five years' residence at Eort Anderson. Common in British 

 Columbia. Mr. Koss obtained eggs and skins thereof at 

 Eort Resolution in 1860. 



Professor Macoun states : " I have foiuid many nests of 

 this duck in various parts of the country. Sometimes they 

 are quite near the water, and at other times several hundred 

 yards away. Some of them breed very early in the spring — 

 so early, in fact, that I have found eggs cracked with the 

 frost." The National Museum at Ottawa contains but five 

 specimens and several eggs, taken in Manitoba, at Indian 

 Head, at Edmonton, and on Vancouver Island ! 



133. Black Duck — Anas obscura (Gmelin). 



This species is probably a summer visitor to several of 

 the breeding fields mentioned in these Notes; but we, how- 

 ever, failed to obtain any of its eggs, even on the Anderson 

 Kiver, where it is not uncommon, and where, also, several 

 birds were shot. At Eort Chipewyan many hundreds of 

 this and other ducks were shot and used for food every 

 season, both by the Company's servants, missionaries, the 

 natives, and other residents. A similar remark will apply 

 to other northern posts and stations, as well as to those of 

 Cumberland District. Not entered in Mr. Koss's Mackenzie 

 Eiver List. In position and composition the nest is similar 

 to that of No. 132, while the eggs are of a pale dirty-yel- 

 lowish drab, and the same in numbers. The Ottawa collec- 

 tion holds only one specimen skin and two sets of eggs ! 



135. Gadwall — Chaulelasmus streperus (Linn.). 



The late Mr. Joseph Mercredi, clerk in charge of the 

 Company's post at Eond du Lac, Athabasca, procured for 



