1889. 
Ai 
;i>onsa. 
\S 
Maine. 
Umbagog. 
/ .* * y 
/ ( -1 1 '^,^ / .. , , ( , | 
Very numerous during September and up to the 5th of October 
when they disppeared, their numbers not lessening gr admlki, but all 
apparently leaving at once. October IGth, however, I shot a sing¬ 
le male in full plumage, but apparently a young bird. On Septem¬ 
ber 82d ] saw two males which appeared to be in perfect adult plu¬ 
mage in company with eighteen or twenty gray birds. On September 
2Gtb Mr. Chadbourne met with four adult males in a flock of about 
twenty females and young. He killed two males which were in real¬ 
ly perfect plumage, quite as fine in fact as any specimens that I 
have ever seen. Most of the males that were killed during Sep¬ 
tember ,however, were in a plumage intermediate between that of the 
young and the adult, the change evidently progressing rapidly tow¬ 
ards the end of the month. I saw several flocks of Wood Ducks 
this season which.must have contained fully twenty individuals each 
As a rule, however, it. was unusual to find more than eight or ten 
together. They frequented very much the same feeding ground as 
the Black Ducks and an examination of their crops showed that they 
were eating the same food, namely, the seeds of a species of scir- 
pus- Perhaps the abundance of this seed attracted them more into 
the open marshes than usual. At all events we found more of them 
in such places than on the rivers and small woodland ponds. Like 
the Black Ducks they flew to the Moose Point marsh every night to 
roost. They are very much tamer than Black Ducks and will often 
allow an open boat if carefully paddled to approach within fair 
gun-shot without any concealment whatever. I. is a very easy mat¬ 
ter to stalk them, provided one can approach without making much 
noise, for their sight is far from quick, and even when they catch 
a glimpse of the hunters they are not at all apt to fly and quickly 
become reassured, if he will only remain perfectly still for a 
minute or two. Their hearing, however, is very keen and it seemed 
to me quite as much so as that of the Black Duck, p&tv the snap of 
a stick or a decided rustling of the puts them instantly on 
the qui yive . They are fond of sunning on floating logs, and on 
several occasions I saw eight or ten sitting in a row along a log 
, all with their breasts turned towards the sun. They not infre¬ 
quently go fast asleep, squatting on a log with their heads buried 
in the feathers of the back. On one occasion I saw five strung 
along on a logg slender dead snag which projected out from the 
shore of the pond over the water. The end bird was fully ten 'feet 
above the water. All were sound asleep and although 1 had a good 
7 ? 
