Cambridge, Mass.
1909
March 16
(No 5)
opportunity to display their respective charms of
plumage and deportment to the best advantage
and in direct yet not unfriendly competition with
one another. Their evolutions were, for the most part,
seemingly regulated by established system or custom
and some of them were strikingly beautiful. Thus
eight or nine drakes, strung out in single file but
so close together that the bill of every one was almost at the
tail of the next, would swim past a female
at top speed and then turn instantly, each bird
on its own axis, as if at some given signal,
before starting back in reverse order, that is with
the bird which had been the last was now leading.
I saw this done a dozen times or more, the 
distance traversed in a straight line on the
different occasions varying from ten to fifty yards
Courtship of Gooseanders