190 Field and Forest Rambles. 



plovers — viz., the long-legged race and the so-called Virginian 

 bird — are noticeable characters, requiring explanation with 

 reference to the habits of the two races. Again, departures 

 from established habits peculiar to any genus, family, or even 

 order of animals are of especial interest to the scientific inquirer. 

 Thus the tree-building ducks furnish examples of a number 

 of species pursuing very different ways of living from the 

 generality of their compeers, so that we. naturally seek to find 

 out if any of the others do occasionally follow the same 

 course. One of the most common and at the same time most 

 highly prized of the resident ducks of our region is the dusky 

 duck (A. obscura), which often weighs three pounds. Although 

 its nest, as a rule, is placed on the ground, yet it occasionally 

 builds in trees, as I am informed by Mr. Boardman, who took 

 the eggs from its nest on a birch tree twenty feet above the 

 level of a lake! The American sheldrake, hooded, and Bar- 

 row's golden eye, buffle-headed duck, and that prince of 

 beauties the wood-duck,* all nestle on trees, but not invariably. 



Probably, if the truth were known, this anomaly was occa- 

 sioned through the force of circumstances compelling the indivi- 

 duals to seek positions safe from the attacks of their four-footed 

 foes, such as the fox, otter, lynx, and the like ; or is it only the 

 relic or reappearance of a long-lost habit of their progenitors ? 

 Mr. Boardman has further furnished me with a strange instance 

 of two sorts of birds rearing their young in the same nest. 

 He noticed two females of the hooded merganser and wood- 

 duck fighting for the possession of a hole in a sand-bank, 

 where he found their broods in one nest, there being no less 

 than fourteen of the former, and nine ducklings of the latter. 

 It has often appeared to me, on observing a bank riddled with 

 the holes made by the sand-martin, how easy it must be to 

 mistake one nest for another. 



Returning to the abnormal habits of quadrupeds before 



* Large numbers of these birds are captured in nets during their 

 migrations when the flocks are flying down the Penobscot River in Maine. 



