192 NYROCA COLLARIS 



In California it has about the same status on the coast as it has with us on the 

 North Atlantic shore but is commoner, although still rare in the interior valleys. 

 Among the ducks shot at the Kennicott Duck Club in eastern Colorado only 

 twenty -two were recorded for the past nineteen years (Bergtold, 1924). They 

 are said to be occasionally very abundant in eastern Oregon (Klamath Lakes) in 

 November. 



Probably the greatest nesting center was formerly northern Wisconsin and Min- 

 nesota. In the latter State it is still a very abundant nester, one writer even consider- 

 ing it the commonest nesting duck (Roberts, 1919), but in Michigan it is only a rare 

 spring and autumn migrant. Probably the breeding range will increase in the United 

 States with better spring protection, and it seems likely that it will spread in the 

 sandhill region of western Nebraska. It is probably very common as a breeder, also, 

 about Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba and less so northwest to Athabasca Lake. 

 There, at the delta, Mr. Francis Harper found it only an uncommon breeder, the 

 fifteenth in order of abundance of the ducks of that region. North of this it is 

 probably not worth reckoning with. 



Very interesting indeed is the small isolated colony of ten or twelve pairs dis- 

 covered by members of our Biological Survey at Marsh Lake in the White Moun- 

 tains of Arizona (U.S. Biological Survey field catalogue). 



We do not know how much this duck has decreased in the West and whether there 

 has been any recent improvement. In Wisconsin, northern Iowa, Nebraska and 

 North Dakota it has gone down hill without a doubt, due to more intensive farming, 

 the lowering of the water-table and the drainage of lakes and sloughs interfering 

 with its nesting. This is one of the ducks that should be carefully watched, for it is 

 not a far-northern breeder. 



Food Value. It is one of the best of the diving ducks for the table. I find 

 only one writer who fails to give it a good name and this one (Elliot, 1898) says it 

 is about equal to the Little Black-head, which is hardly fair. In Louisiana, where it 

 is much better known than anywhere else, it is greatly prized by hunters and is said 

 to be always good. The older writers, Wilson, Ord and Audubon, approved of it and 

 found it was never "fishy." I see no reason why it should not rank as nearly equal 

 to the Red-head. I have carefully compared the flesh with New England-killed 

 Red-heads, and although the texture is perhaps not quite so fine, the flavor is nearly 

 the same and there is no lack of "juiciness." It is perhaps as near like the Ruddy 

 Duck as anything. 



Hunt. There is nothing especial to write concerning its capture. It is taken 

 along with Lesser Scaup and Red-heads and appears to come readily enough to 

 decoys. 



