34 THE CONDOR Vol. XX 



and finished off by the long pin tail. A most elegant figure he made compared 

 with the squat Shoveller lying low on the water. While the responsible drakes 

 of both kinds watched me, the Pintail looking over the grass tops at me, the 

 Shoveller eyeing me from between the blades, their brown mates sat around in- 

 conspicuously among the weeds feeding or resting, as if confident that they 

 were well guarded. From the slough one day late in June, several rods away I 

 discovered the long white neck of a Pintail rising from the grass. When he 

 turned away for a moment the white line went out. After watching me for 

 some time he lowered his long white streak to a short white patch. Then I dis- 

 covered another white streak a few feet aw~ay, and finally made out the dim 

 brown forms of the two ducks. When I rose, all four of the illusory forms 

 took wing. 



As I sat watching the slough one day six Blue-winged Teal flew over from 

 the black streak, the males in their handsome breeding plumage of warm 

 brown marked w T ith white and blue patches. Disregarding me in their preoc- 

 cupation, they lit in a close group and began a curious performance, all six 

 raising and lowering their heads in a droll way that suggested the more elab- 

 orate courtship of the Albatrosses of Laysan Island. After a time all but one 

 duck and drake subsided, but as they separated a little from the group and 

 kept on bowing to each other — if this stiff jumping-jack motion could be called 

 a bow — two drakes walked up to put in an oar. It was too late, however, the 

 die had been cast, and the happy pair, turning their backs on their rejected 

 suitors, waddled off onto the dry pasture where good nesting sites might easily 

 be found. 



Just then a dun-colored Willet lit nearby and on discovering me crouched 

 over the ground one moment, jerked up its long bill the next, and shortly 

 after, with a slight note, flew off, revealing its striking black and white mark- 

 ings. 



The only other time that I saw the quiet Blue-winged Teal make any dem 

 onstration was about a week later, when one climbed up on a stone near a 

 Scaup drake and did head exercises. As the Scaup paid no attention to him 

 he quickly subsided, however. At this time of year, before the striking breed- 

 ing plumage had been replaced by the dull brown eclipse plumage, the Teal 

 were very handsome, especially when seen broadside in flight or in standing 

 conspicuously on a stone, the white face crescent, reddish brown body, and flat 

 blue wing patch distinguishing them. When flying or swimming from you, 

 two round white spots each side of the rump marked them. One of the birds in 

 flying was heard to give a soft rather thin scep-seep-seep, suggesting the soft 

 whistle of the Wood Duck. 



While the ducks occupied the sloughs, from the weeds of the surrounding 

 pasture and the wires of the adjoining fences came the small songs of Savannah 

 Sparrows — the commonest songsters of the prairie, like a monotonous accom- 

 paniment for the loud varied outpouring of the Western Meadowlark and the 

 insistent wreeehy-wreechy-irrcrchij of the Maryland Yellow-throat, singing in 

 the snowberry thicket. A Barn Sivallow, doubtless from the colony nesting in 

 the barn, occasionally flew down to the edge of the water for a drink, as he 

 flew off showing the white spots on his spread fork. Crows cawed, Kingbirds 

 — both the eastern and the Arkansas — flew about the fences, their yellow and 

 white breasts contrasting markedly. Sometimes a Yellow-headed Blackbird 

 and a Bobolink added their notes to the pasture medley. 



