176 NY ROC A AMERICANA 



heads were shot, from two in 1891 to 792 in 1887, whereas during the same period 

 only 48 Canvas-backs were taken. The sudden appearance of the Canvas-back 

 after 1900 is due to some change of food supply which also led to an increase of 

 Red-heads, for the largest returns for the latter species come in the years 1902-05. 

 After this there was a distinct falling off, though good years occasionally occurred. 

 The year 1919 with a record of 1430 was the best season since 1905, which suggests a 

 recent recovery. There seems to be no other place where Red-heads form any larger 

 proportion of the total bag than they do at Long Point. No doubt this is a great 

 gathering point from which one group departs for the lower Mississippi Valley and 

 the other for the coast of Virginia and North Carolina. 



How far eastward the Red-head is common in the St. Lawrence basin I do not 

 know, but from all the information I can gather I should call it a rare bird every- 

 where beyond Montreal and the northern parts of Lake Champlain. Mr. Millais' 

 remark that he saw immense flocks on the river between Quebec and Rimouski 

 strikes me as very unusual, and he has told me since that he was not absolutely cer- 

 tain of his identification. 



There is no evidence that the Red-head was ever anything more than an uncommon 

 bird in New England, except on two or three ponds along the south shore of Martha's 

 Vineyard. My own records for Wenham Lake give a good idea of the actual status 

 in northeastern Massachusetts during the years 1899 to 1920. During those years 

 103 Red-heads were shot representing 3.5% of all the ducks taken. Only 49 others 

 were identified. These were shot in sixteen out of the twenty years in question, and 

 the last ten years have shown a great decrease over the first ten; 1901-03 were the 

 best Red-head years at Wenham, as they were at Long Point. Many other Massa- 

 chusetts ponds take even a smaller toll of Red-heads than this. 



Its status on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts has been discussed by Forbush 

 (1912). In those ponds which have at times been completely salt there is excellent 

 food for diving ducks, including wild celery, widgeon-grass and Potamogetons, and 

 during some years several thousand Red-heads gather there in October, November 

 and December, mixed with a much greater number of Lesser Scaups. There are 

 some on Nantucket Island too, but the species has fallen off in the past ten or fifteen 

 years in Massachusetts. In the Rhode Island and Connecticut coastal ponds there 

 has been no special diminution, in fact, in the latter State, Sage, Bishop and Bliss 

 (1913) think there has been an increase since 1902, but the species is irregular there 

 and cannot be considered abundant on an average. 



Red-heads appear in increasing numbers in flocks of Scaups, both Greater and 

 Lesser, along the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey to Delaware and Maryland, 

 where at the head of Chesapeake Bay they become really plentiful. The great 

 decrease of this duck and of the Canvas-back on the upper waters of the Chesapeake 

 dates from about the time of the Johnstown Flood and cannot be entirely blamed on 



