188 NYROCA COLLARIS 



I suspect that they prefer much shallower waters than the Scaups and feed more 

 or less by dabbling as Audubon pointed out. Whether they prefer even shallower 

 waters than Red-heads I cannot say. One writer (H. H. Sheldon, 1907) is so bold 

 as to relate that he has seen them perching on the limbs of fallen dead pines rising 

 above the water, an unusual position for a diving duck, to say the least. 



Flight. I do not believe that these ducks can be distinguished by any pe- 

 culiarity when on the wing at a distance. Audubon noticed a "constant whistling 

 as they passed overhead" but I doubt if this is in any way characteristic. He is 

 right in saying that " unlike the Scaups, they experience no difficulty in rising on the 

 wing, whether from land or from the water." He adds that they generally spring up 

 at once when alarmed, meaning, I suppose, that they have not the Scaup habit of 

 swimming a good distance away before taking to wing. So active are these little ducks 

 in the air that when coming head-on they have several times suggested Teal in their 

 appearance, so much so that I took them for surface-feeders, not diving ducks. 



The flocks do not appear to be ever really large, even where the birds are com- 

 monest as they are in Louisiana in winter. Two or three, up to a dozen, is the usual 

 number noted. Allan Brooks gives them a great record for speed and considers them 

 "the fastest flying ducks in America." 



Association with other Species. It is doubtful whether the Ring-neck asso- 

 ciates closely with other species. The stragglers which I have taken in Massa- 

 chusetts waters were always alone. Allan Brooks (1899a) says that in British Col- 

 umbia it frequents smaller ponds and more rushy localities than the Scaups but he 

 has seen both species of Scaups, Ring-necks, Red-heads and Canvas-backs in one 

 enormous flock. 



Voice. The voice has been wrongly described as like the Scaup's. This is true 

 of the females who often give vent to a rather loud churr-'mg note like many other 

 diving ducks. I could not make out anything distinctive about it. But the male's 

 voice, which is in reality only a spring or courtship performance, I find described by 

 myself as a "series of low lisping notes, not audible for more than fifty yards and 

 sounding like weet-wot-wut-wut-wut, reminding me somewhat of the spring voice of 

 the male Tufted Duck." It is clearly very different from the call of the Red-head 

 or the Pochard, or the very low dove-like coo of the Scaup. Lord William Percy 

 described this note to me, which seemed to him a "wheezing whistle," not a "clear 

 whistle." Audubon long ago thought of it as "resembling the sound produced by a 

 person blowing through a tube." It is possible that I did not hear the full court- 

 ship note from the pair which I had in confinement. The male is a silent bird at 

 best and it was seldom that I caught him in a lively mood. 



