97 



SUMMER DUCK, OR WOOD DUCK. 



AJVAS SFOJVSA. 

 [Plate LXX.— Fig. 3.] 



Le (janard d*Ete, Bmss. VI, p, 351. 11. pi. S2. Jig. 2. — Le heaii Canard hiippe, Buff. IX, p. 245. — 



PL Enl. 980. 981.— Summer Duck, Catesby, I, pi. 97.— Edw. pi. lOi.—Jlrct. Zool JV'o. 943 > 



Lath. Syn. Ill, p. 546. — Peale's Musmm, JV*o. 2872. 



THIS most beautiful of all our Ducks, has probably no su- 

 perior among its whole tribe for richness and variety of colors. 

 It is called the Wood Ducky from the circumstance of its breeding 

 in hollow trees; and the Summer Duck^ from remaining with us 

 chiefly during the summer. It is familiarly known in every quar- 

 ter of the United States, from Florida to Lake Ontario, in the 

 neighbourhood of which latter place I have myself met with it in 

 October. It rarely visits the sea shore, or salt marshes ; its fa- 

 vorite haunts being the solitary deep and muddy creeks, ponds, 

 and mill dams of the interior, making its nest frequently in old 

 hollow trees that overhang the water. 



The Summer Duck is equally well known in Mexico and 

 many of the West India islands. During the whole of our winters 

 they are occasionally seen in the states south of the Potowmac. 

 On the tenth of January I met with two on a creek near Peter s- 

 burgh in Virginia. In the more northern districts, however, they 

 are migratory. In Pennsylvania the female usually begins to lay 

 late in April or early in May. Instances have been known where 

 the nest was constructed of a few sticks laid in a fork of the 

 branches; usually, however, the inside of a hollow tree is select- 

 ed for this purpose. On the eighteenth of May I visited a tree 

 containing the nest of a Summer Duck, on the banks of Tiickahoe 



VOLo VIIIo B b 



