18 K 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XIII 
kept just out of gunshot with an accuracy that was almost uncanny during the spring 
sliootiiig season, could, in a few short weeks, be converted into the comparatively 
tame and unsuspicious birds that the nesting female Pintails proved to be. Yet the 
sleek, well dressed male with his conspicuous white waistcoat and brown head was 
at all times wary and difficult to approach, and very few times did we approach to 
within gunshot of him, although his solicitude for his mate and the nest was quite 
apparent. 
We found nests of the Pintail in widely diversified locations but there was a 
peculiar similarity noticeable in all of them which was very different from our ex- 
perience with the teal. 
The first nest, found May 11, 1907, was probably the most unusually located 
nest of the Pintail on record. 
It was just a trifle less than 
eighteen feet from the rails 
of the main line of the Bur- 
lington Route, over which a 
dozen or more heavy trains 
thundered every day, and well 
within the railroad right-of- 
way w'here section hands and 
pedestrians passed back and 
forth continually. The mother 
bird had found a cavity in the 
ground, about eight inches in 
diameter and eight inches 
deep, and had lined it with 
grass; and the tw'O fresh eggs 
which it contained on this 
date were deposited without 
any downy lining whatever. 
The female flushed as we 
passed along the track about 
twenty feet distant, thus at- 
tracting our attention. A 
week later (on the eighteenth) 
the nest was fairly well lined 
with down and contained nine 
eggs, one egg having appar- 
ently been deposited each day. 
On May 24 the nest contained 
eleven eggs and the parent was 
much tamer than on the two preceding visits, allowing us to approach to within 
fifteen feet of her, and alighting within twenty yards of us upon being flushed. 
Another peculiar nest was found May 30, 1908, containing eleven eggs which 
hatched during the first week in June. This nest was a depression in a perfectly 
bare sandy flat without a particle of concealment of any kind. The cavity was lo- 
cated in the most exposed position within hundreds of yards, and was fairly well lined 
with weed-stems, grass, etc., and w^ell rimmed with down. The brooding female 
was very conspicuous against the back-ground of bare sand, and could be readily 
seen from a distance of fifty feet or more. This bird was rather wild and flushed 
while we were yet some distance from the nest. 
