28
Back Bay Basin,
Boston, Mass.
1909.
Feb. 27
(No. 28)
Whistler courtship.
   For nearly half an hour a picturesque line of
birds, consisting of nine full plumaged males and two
females, paraded on the glossy water well off shore
and about two hundred yards from where I was sitting.
They swam back and fourth over a perfectly straight
course three hundred yards or more in length.
Moving slowly but steadily in single file, the
females close together and ever in the lead, the
proud drakes following them and each other at
intervals varying from six or ten to fifteen or
twenty feet. Although this orderly procession
seldom halted, even for an instant, the males were
almost incessantly posing and bleating and kicking
up the little jets of water at their sterns, as
they glided sedately over the calm surface of the bay.
Apparently they performed by turns, not in any
Nuptial parade