INTRODUCTION 17 



short time the marsh was swarming with them. Few sportsmen have been lucky 

 enough to see one of these great arrivals from the North. 



Some species, like the Ruddy, absolutely refuse to travel by day, and a migrating 

 flock which arrives during the night will not leave until after dark the next night. 

 I have seen migrating Ruddies come into a pond just at the first streak of dawn, but 

 never later. 



Scoters perform leisurely journeys along the coast during morning and evening 

 hours, and sometimes all day, but they very seldom cross over land except at night, 

 or extremely early in the morning, sharing the same fear of land as the Ruddy. 



It is impossible to get an accurate idea of the distance which may be traveled by 

 the individual flock without rest. If the Canada Goose be any criterion, it seems to 

 me very likely that many ducks may travel a thousand miles without a stop, if the 

 conditions are suitable, but I know of no observation that would throw much light 

 on this point. It remains purely a speculation. We know that geese wih not stop at 

 New England points during very favorable weather, and presumably perform their 

 entire flight from New Brunswick or Nova Scotia to Virginia at one journey. Swans 

 probably make even longer journeys, and it is doubtful whether the bulk of the 

 Red-heads and Canvas-backs that tarry on the north shore of Lake Erie make an- 

 other stop until they reach Virginia and North Carolina. 



It would be interesting to know more about feeding habits during migration. I 

 think it will be found that ducks while under the active impulse to move care very 

 little about filling their crops. Many flocks that I have noticed merely rest and wash 

 up for an hour or two, and show no desire to feed. The Pintails that winter on the 

 Hawaiian Isles come probably from the Alaskan Peninsula or the Aleutian Islands 

 and cover a distance of twenty-two hundred miles without food, although of course 

 they can rest if the sea is not too rough. 



PLUMAGE 



Although the patterns of ducks are various, and the colors run through the whole 

 gamut of the rainbow, yet most species, even those not at all closely related, show a 

 ducklike general plan — that is, a head and neck color, a breast color, and a wing 

 speculum. However, some, as the Scoters, are plain or self-colored all over, while 

 others, as the extraordinary Freckled Duck of Australia, have an entirely unduck- 

 like coloring and no wing speculum. The plumage is usually more varied in the 

 male, but in at least fifty-three cases the sexes are alike, or differ only in size or in 

 slightly duller coloration. In some, as in the Torrent Ducks, the female is brilliantly 

 but differently colored from the male, and the same thing may be seen in the Shel- 

 drakes of Australia and New Zealand. In the Paradise Sheldrake, the first young 

 plumage is much more like that of the male than that of the female, so that females 

 actually pass through a sort of male phase before they reach maturity. 



