The Canvas-back 



right. What wonder, then, if designing females, enamored of the gambols 

 of high duck society, and dreading the maternal exile, impose upon this 

 good dame in the matter of additional charges. A Redhead's nest is the 

 foundling asylum of the marshes. In it are found Ruddies' eggs, Mallards', 

 or Teals'. When the two species are associated, the wily Canvasback 

 frequently puts one over on her less astute neighbors. A. M. Shields 

 is reported to have taken a nest containing twelve eggs of the Redhead 

 and three of the Fulvous Tree Duck. Messrs. Willett and Jay found a 

 nest at San Jacinto Lake which held twenty-seven eggs, of which ten were 

 surmised to belong to another bird, possibly a Pintail. 



At Los Banos I once found a Redhead's nest whose owner was not 

 quite so accommodating. Before her ladyship was ready to lay, a saucy 

 Cinnamon Teal had deposited eight of her own burdens. At least, when 

 I found it, May 22nd, 1912, the nest contained two of the Teal and one 

 of the Redhead. Two days later, when I approached noisily through the 

 rushes, I found the nest hastily covered with down and leafy trash, much 

 scattering of down about, and water splashed on the skirts of the nest. 

 The nest, when uncovered, contained five eggs of the Teal and two of the 

 Redhead. After voicing my disgust in appropriate non-professional lan- 

 guage, I spied a Teal's egg under water below the nest. This gave me the 

 clew, and by dint of exploring with careful toes, I located the other two 

 missing Teal's eggs, one of them well buried in six inches of soft mud 

 below two feet of water. Whose was the exact moral responsibility for 

 this divided house, we shall never know, for "science" claimed the right 

 of suppressing all further incongruities. 



No. 357 



Canvas-back 



A. O. U. Xo. 147. Marila valisineria (Wilson). 



Description. — Adult male: Similar to preceding species, but larger, head larger, 

 bill longer, and no evident angle between bill and forehead; head and upper neck 

 reddish brown without purplish gloss, blackening on crown and chin; the sides less 

 heavily waved with dusky; the white bars of upperparts much wider than the dusky 

 (hence entire back conspicuously lighter in tone). Upper mandible dusky at base, 

 bluish only between nostril and black tip; iris red. Adult female: Similar to that of 

 preceding species, but proportioned like male; bill correspondingly different; feathers 

 of back and scapulars more or less wavy-barred with white. (The female Red-head 

 is sparingly speckled above with dusky and whitish, but never barred.) Length 508- 

 596.9 (20.00-23.50); wing 228.6 (9.00); tail 73.7 (2.90); bill 59.7 (2.35); tarsus 44.5 

 (1-75). 



1803 



