34 : 
may be distinguished from the bay and sea ducks by the 
fact that they do not dive for their food, but take^it from 
the bottom in shallow water by putting their heads under. 
They are more distinctly fresh-water ducks than the bay and 
sea ducks, and are more exposed to the gunners by reason of 
their feeding in shallow water and usually near shore. The 
ponds, marshes and streams of Massachusetts once swarmed 
with these ducks during the migrations, and it is not im- 
probable that some of them bred here, as the wood duck and 
black duck still do to some extent. 
The wood duck, the most beautiful of all ducks, once bred 
abundantly throughout New England. In Massachusetts it 
has been growing rarer near the coast for years, but has 
been fairly common in parts of most of the inland counties 
until the latter part of the last century. In this inquiry no 
questions were asked regarding the wood duck, but informa- 
tion comes from Berkshire, Worcester, Essex, Middlesex, 
Norfolk, Plymouth and Bristol counties that this bird is 
rapidly decreasing, or gone. Fourteen observers speak of 
the bird as follows: extinct, three; nearing extinction, five; 
decreasing, three; decreasing until the last two years, one; 
holding their own, two. Some of these reports come from 
regions where the wood duck has always been a common 
bird. In other sections its absence has now ceased to at- 
tract notice. My own experience with the wood ducks seems 
to indicate that they are decreasing rapidly. A few years 
ago they were occasionally seen in small flocks during the 
breeding season; in 1904 I saw but one in the migrations 
at Concord. This bird, a fine male, was comparatively tame, 
and on three different occasions I might have shot him. He 
was finally killed by a gunner. This species is not so wary 
as many other ducks. It often haunts small streams and 
ponds which can be shot across. Where gunners find a 
family of these birds, it is not very difficult for them to get 
every one. Mr. Edwin R. Lewis, one of the bird commis- 
sioners of Rhode Island, wrote me from Westerly, on Dec. 
19, 1904, that wood ducks had been seen only occasionally 
that year, and that he knew of only ten of these birds having 
been killed during the season. In 1901 Dr. A. K. Eisher 
