Anas obscura . 
Lake Umbagog, Maine. 
1897. At evening Will rowed me over to the Outlet marshes. 
Sept.11. After looking about a bit and trying to find a place where 
Ducks had been feeding we finally stopped near where we were 
anchored last evening and pushing the boat into a bed of grass 
(which was more than half submerged) lighted our pipes and 
waited. It was-not long before Black Ducks began to arrive 
and alight on the flooded marshes. Most of them came singly 
but one flock of a dozen or more settled somewhere behind us. 
None cane near us at first but we could see or hear them in 
every direction. At times the whole marsh rang with the 
quacking of the ducks and the hoarse, cracked voices of the 
drakes. Nevertheless there were not very many in all - prob- 
o 
ably no more than twenty or twenty-five. The single ones 
called the loudest and oftenest but in no instance, so far as 
I could make out, did they join aiy of the birds that answered 
them. Each bird, indeed, seemed to have chosen a feeding 
place that was to its liking and to be merely carrying on a 
conversation in duck language with its friends in other parts 
of the flooded marsh. 
This had gone on for some time when Will whispered that 
some Ducks were coming up behind us. Turning slowly I saw them 
about seventy yards off directly in the middle of the pathway 
of burnished silver cast over the rippling water by the full 
