MUSCOVY DUCK 63 



and resigns herself to the inconsiderate treatment of the male with "nothing short 

 of masochistic delight." Frequently it happened that sympathetic onlookers would 

 go running to the keepers to plead for the life and health of the poor, and, in their 

 opinion, much-abused female. 



Often a female who lacked a mate would, at every attack made upon her by any 

 other duck, quietly lie on the water without resistance and accept, apparently with 

 pleasure, a belaboring by its angry comrade of the pond. 



Among the males of a pond there is a very strict order of rank. The birds con- 

 tinually watch each other and the strongest one never permits a weaker one to pair. 

 As soon as he sees a male and a female together, he rushes at the pair in question. The 

 weaker male immediately takes flight when the tyrant approaches, a thing wholly 

 in contrast to the attitude seen among males of the true ducks, who will only permit 

 themselves to be torn from the females after the application of real force. So with 

 the Muscovies, on account of this extreme jealousy, the males in a pond remain 

 together, the strongest one staying in their vicinity. In the laying season all these 

 males have their attention fixed on particular females, who, as a matter of fact, 

 are the ones that are shortly to begin laying, or have already begun their 

 clutch. That the males are able to determine the stage of egg development in the 

 female by the red wattles on the face is, Heinroth thinks, quite possible. After the 

 mating act there was no especial behavior noted except the well-known head move- 

 ments. 



From the above it is quite evident that Muscovies are wholly polygamous in a 

 semi-domestic state, and it is further noted that the males do not in any way con- 

 cern themselves with the offspring nor follow the females when they are seeking 

 hollows for their nests, as the drakes of the Carolina and Mandarin species always do. 

 Heinroth adds also some very interesting observations on the mating of the Mus- 

 covy with an Egyptian Goose. 



The nest seems always to be placed from three to twenty meters high in the hol- 

 lows of trees and commonly, too, between the leaves of palms. Hartert and Venturi 

 (1909) mention their nesting in the dry branches of quebrachas coloradas in the Chaco 

 region. In one instance, however, at the extreme southern portion of its range, south 

 of the Rio Negro, Argentina, it was found nesting on the ground amidst rushes 

 (Oustalet, 1901). The nest appears to consist only of down plucked from the female 

 and the number of eggs is given as eight or nine, often more; ten to fifteen or twenty, 

 according to the Penards. The eggs measure 64-71 x 46-47 mm., are oval, and in 

 color shiny white with a green sheen. According to Heinroth (1908) the incubation 

 period is thirty-five days, but the Penards give only four weeks as the length of the 

 period, which is certainly too short. 



So many excellent ornithologists seem inclined to credit the various stories of the 

 mother bird bringing the young to the ground in her bill or upon her back, that these 



