*
Lake Umbagog.
1896
June 5
how can a Duck bring her young down from such a height &
through such a hole unless in her bill? A native of Upton who
once lived near the narrows tells me that he saw a Gooseander
take her young from a nest in a stub near his house to the
water & that she carried them one by one on her back!
He further says that the young separately slipped off & that
she recovered them by turning over on her side and darting
beneath them. In one instance he saw this done three times
during the conveyance of our of one of the young.
  When we reached the grove of stubs near Leonard's Pond
we turned into them & went to the Golden-eye's nest
which I found this morning. Watrons climbed to the top
of the stub (which is only about 12 ft. high) and looking in
saw eggs about 5 ft down. He then cut a hole just above
them which I could easily reach & through which I examined
the nest carefully. There were only five eggs and although this
did not more than half fill the available space they were like
those of the set of ten crowded tightly together each egg standing
on end and firmly fixed in the rotten wood at the bottom of the
cavity. There was but little down but this was carefully
disposed about the eggs so that it covered most of them. Supposing
the set to be incomplete we took only one egg (substituting for it
the rotten egg found in Sweat's Meadow) but on blowing it we
found it far advanced in incubation as the other four eggs
proved to be when taken next day. I had no idea that
the Golden-eye ever contented itself with so small a set of eggs.
[margin]Nest of
Whistler[/margin]
  I heard two Black-poll Warblers to-day singing among the
stubs near the outlet.
[Black-poll
Warblers[/margin]