318 
VERTEBRATA. 
SUMMER OE WOOD DUCKS. 
brandies ; usually, however, the inside of a hollow tree is selected for this purpose. On the 18th 
of May I visited a tree containing the nest of a Summer Duck, on the banks of Tuckahoe Eiver, 
New Jersey. It was an old, grotesque white oak, whose top had been torn off by a storm. It 
stood on the declivity of the bank, about twenty yards from the water. In this hollow and broken 
top, and about sixteen feet down, on the soft, decayed wood, lay thirteen eggs, snugly covered 
with down, doubtless taken from the breast of the bird. 
"This tree had been occupied, probably by the same pair, for four successive years, in breeding 
time ; the person who gave me the information, and whose house was within twenty or thirty 
yards of the tree, said that he had seen the female, the spring preceding, carry down thirteen 
young, one by one, in less than ten minutes. She caught them in her bill by the wing or back 
of the neck, and landed them safely at the foot of the tree, whence she afterward led them to the 
water. The male usually perched on an adjoining limb, and kept watch while the female was 
laying, and also often while she was sitting. A tame goose had chosen a hollow space at the 
root of the same tree, to lay and hatch her young in. 
