CAROLINA DUCK 65 



and the assumption of the immature plumage. The plumaceous tail-feathers, which 

 are 29 mm. long, do not begin to grow until ten days after hatching. Then an in- 

 crease takes place, due to the pushing out of the new rectrices carrying the natal 

 down on their tips. The down is not lost until the feathers are about 75 mm, long; 

 that is, until about a month after birth. At this time the young bird has a remark- 

 ably long and stiff tail. At about fourteen days, feather growth begins on the under 

 tail-coverts and pectoral areas. At the age of seven or eight weeks only a small 

 trace of the downy plumage is visible, in the region of the nape. The flight feathers 

 scarcely begin to grow until the age of four weeks, and the bird is capable of flight 

 near the ninth week. Then follows a period when there is little change in plumage, 

 but when three months old the transition to mature plumage begins, with the ex- 

 ception of the flight feathers and greater coverts, which of course are not moulted 

 until the following spring. 



Not much has been written on the care of the young in the wild state. As before 

 remarked, the little ones dive expertly when frightened and as in the case of other 

 young ducks it is very difficult to detect them once they have scattered. 



Status. Older writers, notably Audubon, testify to the extreme abundance of 

 this species in all the eastern part of the United States. He speaks of shooting thirty 

 to fifty on an evening flight and mentions a person in the South who trapped several 

 hundreds in the course of a week; while in the markets of South Carolina they 

 brought only thirty to forty cents the pair. Information as to the former abundance 

 and present diminution of the Carolina Duck is so voluminous and writers are so 

 generally in agreement as to its present and past status that only a few of the more 

 important investigations need to be noted here. In general this species was exceed- 

 ingly abundant all over the eastern United States until the early eighties. About the 

 year 1888 it was still what I should call an abundant breeder in the valley of the 

 Ipswich River, Massachusetts, and females and flocks of partly grown birds were a 

 common sight. In the whole valley to-day it is doubtful whether more than five to 

 eight pairs are breeding. My experience is typical of that of most of Forbush's 

 (1912) numerous correspondents all over Massachusetts. At the close of 1908, 

 thirteen of them reported it as increasing as against one hundred and four who 

 recorded a decrease. The great general decrease began in the seventies, and now, in 

 1924, after ten years' protection, it is probable that the small five per cent remnant is 

 holding its own. But there are many factors that are constantly working against any 

 natural increase in the northeastern States. Suitable nesting areas are being reduced 

 in size and the all-the-year close time as decreed by Federal Law is not always ef- 

 fective, where at the beginning of the shooting season thousands of ignorant shooters 

 take the field. Even among educated sportsmen mistakes are common, and the scat- 

 tering remnant continue to fall a prey to the all too eager hunter. Without doubt the 



