380 LONG-TAILED DUCK. 



middle in the water, while they dived before me like so many Water- 

 witches, the mothers keeping aloof, and sounding their notes of alarm and 

 admonition. I was fortunate enough to procure several of the young birds, 

 and afterwards shot one of the old, which having young much smaller than 

 the rest, was more anxious for their safety, and kept with them within shot. 

 She and the young were afterwards put in rum, to be subsequently examin- 

 ed. I counted eleven broods on the same pond, and Mr. Jones assured me 

 that these birds always breed in numbers together, but rarely on the same 

 lake two successive years. Their plumage was ragged, in so far as I could 

 judge, and the individual which I shot w r as similar. They never dived 

 while in my sight, but seemed constantly to urge their young to do so, and 

 the little things so profited by the advice of their parents, that had they 

 remained in the water, instead of making, after awhile, for the land, I believe 

 I should not have succeeded, after all my exertions, in capturing a single one 

 of them. 



The gentleman above mentioned informed me that the old birds keep the 

 young in the ponds until they are quite able to fly, or until the end of 

 August, when the flocks remove on wing to the sea, and soon after leave the 

 coast, seldom reappearing before the first clays of May, or about two weeks 

 before most other kinds of Ducks. The little ones which I procured, were 

 as you see them represented in my plate. Those that were larger were of 

 the same coloui*, and none shewed any feathers on their bodies. Now and 

 then, like all other young Ducks, they would skim over the surface of the 

 water with astonishing rapidity, emitting a sharp note somewhat resembling 

 the syllables pee, pee, j9ce, and would then dive with the quickness of 

 thought. When squatted among the moss, they allowed me to take them 

 without making any attempt to escape. The young were put in a tub, and 

 had some soaked biscuit placed near them; but they were all found dead the 

 next morning. 



The range of this noisy, lively, and beautiful Duck, extends along our 

 coast as far south as Texas, and it is also found at the mouth of the Columbia 

 river; but the species is never found on any of our fresh-water courses, and 

 I am quite confident that Mr. Say mistook for it the Pintail Duck, Anas 

 acuta, when he says that he found it on the waters of the Missouri. 

 During all my residence in the neighbourhood of the Mississippi, and in the 

 course of all my journeys on and along its waters, I never saw one of these 

 birds, or heard of any having occurred on that stream above its confluence 

 with the Gulf of Mexico; whereas the Pintails are extremely abundant there, 

 as well as on the Missouri, the Ohio, and all our western streams, in spring 

 and autumn. Few T Long-tailed Ducks are to be seen in the market of New 



