EABLEQUIN DUCK 



189 



diately separate this from all other ducks. The small bill, sharply- 

 pointed tail, and bright hazel brown sides, are also characteristic. 

 The female and young are inconspicuous birds of plain coloration. 

 The very small and short bill, pointed tail, lack of any sort of white 

 markings on wing, and the two whitish spots on each side of head, 

 are the only definite markings which distinguish the female. As com- 

 pared with the Scoters the Harlequin when swimming is much more 

 buoyant, its body appearing to sit higher out of the water. 



The seeker of rare birds eggs might well bend his endeavors to the 

 discovery of a nest of the Harlequin Duck; up to the present time 

 no one has found the eggs within this state, and indeed, sets taken 

 anywhere are rare in collections. Belding (MS) says of the Harle- 

 quin in California: 



I have noticed many of 

 these ducks on the principal 

 streams of Calaveras and 

 Stanislaus counties in sum- 

 mer in each of the past six 

 or seven years and sent a 

 juvenile to the Smithsonian 

 [Institution] which I shot 

 here in 1879 or 1880. I 

 find young broods from about 

 4,000 feet upward, the earli- 

 est apparently hatched about 

 the first of June or earlier, 

 and have often surprised 

 the mother ducks with their 



broods when hidden in Saxifrage (S. peltata) which grows profusely in parts 

 of the mountain streams, sometimes approaching within a few feet of the brood 

 ere I alarmed it, when all would hurriedly swim from* me, vigorously using 

 both feet and wings to propel themselves against or with the rapid currents, 

 not hesitating to tumble over a moderate sized cataract when anxious to 

 escape from danger, or, even, when following the streams withoiit such 

 impetus. 



Dr. Huse saw a female Harlequin with a brood of ducklings on Griswold 

 Creek [Tuolumne County] in 1881 or 1882, and J. Clarence Sperry and Horace 

 Pillsbury caught a juvenile from a flock of the same, which could not fly, on 

 the same creek, in the summer of 1889. The most southern point where it 

 has been captured in California is the south fork of the Tuolomne River, 

 where I got ... a male and female — May 15, 1891 (Belding, 1891, p. 98). 



Belding (MS) thinks the California birds breed among the rocks. 

 Kaedina states that he knew of two pairs of Harlequin ducks nesting 

 in 1896 in Tuolumne County at an altitude of 4,600 feet. The nest 

 site for the previous year was found but he was unable to locate the 

 site of the 1896 nest. Later he found that at least one of these pairs 

 had brought off a brood. On a mountain journey of a hundred miles 



,■?->' j^ 



Fig. 26. Head of female Harlequin Duck. 

 One-half natural size. 



Note white between bill and eye and white 

 patch in region of ear. 



