202 
AXAS SPOJJSA. 
summer. It is fiimiliarly known in every quartet ® 
the United States, from Florida to Lake Ontario, in 
neigthbourhood of which latter place I have myselt 
with it in October. It rarely visits the sea shorej^ 
salt marshes, its favourite haunts beingf the solit*^' 
deep, and muddy creeks, ponds, and mill dams of 
interior, makin<v its nest frequently in old hollow tr*’ 
that overhanif the water. 
The summer duck is equally well known in Me-^',, 
and many of the West India Islands. During- the « f"’ . 
of our winters, they are occasionally seen in the Stah' 
south of the Potou inac. On the lOth of January 
with two on a creek near Petersburgh in Virginia- . 
the more norflicrn districts, however, they are migrato'jj 
In Pennsylvania the female usually begins to laV 
in April or early in May. Instances have been ku®”., 
where the nest was constructed of a few sticks lai*^ 'J 
a fork of the branches ; usually, however, the insiJ® j 
a hollow tree is selected for this jnirpose. On the w , 
of May I visited a tree containing the nest of asua**^ . 
duck, on the hanks of Tuckahoe river. New 
It was an old grotesque white oak, whose top had j’®', 
torn off by a storm. It stood on the declivity of ’, ■( 
bank, about twenty yards from the tvater. ’in ’!,j 
hollow and broken top, and .about si.v feet down, oi* 
soft decayed wood, lay thirteen eggs, snuglv cor'*’ - 
with down, tloubtlcss taken from the breiist o’f the 
These eggs were of an e.vact oval shape, less than th®^' 
of a hen, the surface exceedingly fine grained, **”*1^- 
the highest polish and slightly yellowish, greatly reS'V 
filing old polished ivory. The egg measured tu o i"*’ ' ^ 
and an eighth by one inch and a half. On breakin? ®j, 
of them, tile young bird was found to be nearly hate*' j 
but dead, as neither of the parents had been obseU . 
about the tree during the three or four days preced* - 
and were conjectured to have been shot. 
Thi-s tree had been occupied, probably by the 
pair, for tour successive years, in breeding time . ^ 
person who gave me the information, .and whose h<’“'^ 
was within twenty or thirty yards of the tree, said ' 
