July, 1911’ 
NESTING NOTES ON DUCKS OF THE BARR LAKE REGION, COLO. 
127 
ment is complete. In fact we seldom flushed the parent bird from nests containing 
incomplete sets, although a good many such were found. 
Complete sets ranged in number from seven to twelve. The sixteen nests of 
which we kept a definite record contained the following sets: one of twelve, six of 
eleven, one of ten, two of nine, five of eight, and one of seven. These were only a 
fraction of the total number of nests found, but a fair estimate of the average clutch 
in all the nests examined would be nine or ten eggs. 
The first brood of young birds was found June 22, and on July 5 and 6 several 
broods of half grown young were seen. The hiding instinct of the ducklings 
during the downy period is little short of miraculous. One fond mother bird which 
flushed almost from between my feet in a wet grassy meadow left eight tiny brown 
balls of down in plain sight within arm’s length of me; yet after they had scamper- 
I'-ig. 40. THE S.\ME NEST AS THAT SHOWN IN FIO. .V> WITH CONCEALING 
VEGETATION REMOVED 
ed to shelter fifteen minute’s careful search brought to light only three babies, al- 
though I knew that the remaining five must be hiding within a radius of four or 
five feet. 
When flushed from a brood of young ones the mother bird employs all the 
arts known to birddom to entice the intruder away from her babies; fluttering 
through the grass, feigning a broken wing, and uttering low cries, utterly un-duck- 
like in tone. 
The mother duck stays with her brood at least until they are full grown and 
on the wing. One devoted mother who was surprised by us in a narrow lagoon 
with her brood of five three-fourths grown ducklings, courageously swam back and 
forth in front of us, and not twenty-five feet distant, endeavoring to distract our 
