10 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



nest (with ten eggs) in the fissure of a rock, on the Kentucky river, 

 a few miles below Frankfort, Generally, however, the holes to which 

 they betake themselves are either over deep swamps, above cane- 

 brakes, or on broken branches of high sycamores, seldom more than 

 forty or fifty feet from the water. They are much attached to their 

 breeding-places, and for three successive years I found a pair near 

 Henderson, in Kentucky, with the eggs, in the beginning of April, in 

 the abandoned nest of the Ivory -billed Woodpecker. The eggs, which 

 are from six to fifteen, according to the age of the bird, are placed on 

 dry plants, feathers, and a scanty portion of down, which I believe is 

 mostly plucked from the breast of the female. They are perfectly 

 smooth, nearly elliptical, of a light color, between buff and pale green, 

 two inches in length by one and a half in diameter. " No sooner has 

 the female completed her set of eggs than she is abandoned by her 

 mate, who now joins others, which form themselves into considerable 

 flocks, and thus remain apart till the young are able to fly, when old 

 and young of both sexes come together, and so remain until the com- 

 mencement of the next breeding season. In all the nests I have ex- 

 amined, I have been rather surprised to find a quantity of feathers 

 belonging to birds of other species, even those of the domestic fowls, 

 and particularly those of the Wild Goose and Wild Turkey. On com- 

 ing on a nest with eggs when the bird was absent in search of food, I 

 have always found the eggs covered over with feathers and down, al- 

 though quite out of sight, in the depth of a Woodpecker's or squirrel's 

 hole. On the contrary, when the nest was placed on the broken 

 branch of a tree, it could easily be observed from the ground, on ac- 

 count of the feathers, dead sticks and withered branches about it. If 

 the nest is placed immediately over the water, the young, the mo- 

 ment they are hatched, scramble to the mouth of the hole, launch 

 into the air with their little wings and feet spread out, and drop into 

 their favorite element ; but whenever their birth-place is some dis- 

 tance from it, the mother carries them to it, one by one. in her bill, 

 holding them so as not to injure their yet tender frame. On several 

 occasions, however, when the hole was thirty, forty, or more yards 

 from a bayou or other piece of water, I observed that the mother suf- 

 fered the young to fall on the grasses and dried leaves beneath the 

 tree, and afterwards led them directly to the nearest edge of the next 

 pool or creek." Audubon. 



FOOD. 



According to Nuttall, the food k ' consists principally of acorns, the 

 seeds of aquatic plants, such as those of the wild oat (Zizania aquat- 

 ica), Ruppia, etc., and insects, which inhabit in or near waters; and 

 I have seen a fine male whose stomach was wholly filled with a mass 



