A Small Flight of Gadwalls (Chaulelasmus streperus) near New York.— 
Early in the morning of October 16, 1909, my young friends Allan and 
James Hand were watching at a pond on the salt marshes near Lawrence, 
L. I. About sunrise a flock of seven odd looking ducks circled the pond 
several times and finally six of them came to the decoys, four being shot. 
The boys remained an hour or so longer, seeing two or three more flocks 
that they felt sure were the same kind of duck, but none came near enough 
for positive identification. They brought the birds to me — to be identi¬ 
fied as young Gadwalls, rather poor in flesh, their average weight being 
under twenty-four ounces. The best one I preserved. 
My friend Col. Franklin Brandreth of Ossining, N. Y., tells me of a single 
specimen brought to him, that was killed near that place about October 29, 
1909. 
The marshes of Lake Erie are the nearest points to Long Island where the 
Gadwall is regularly found, and there they are not very common. The 
carefully kept record of a shooting club at the western end of the lake shows 
that in twenty-one years, to 1908, but one has been taken in each two 
hundred ducks, or about one-half per cent, of the total score. This year 
(1909), however, they were more abundant than usual, I personally secur¬ 
ing eleven specimens, which is exactly the same number I have secured, 
in the aggregate, on the same marshes, during the previous eighteen years. 
— Harold Herrick, New York City. 
▲ok 27. Jan-lfliO p, 7 7 . 
