Aix sponsa . 
Lake Umbagog, Maine. 
1897. We (Purdie, Will and I) next turned into the meadow op- 
Sept.15. posite (and a little below) Pulpit Rock (on the Megalloway). 
It proved to be flooded to the very edges of the woods. Near 
the upper end, however, a belt of grass and bushes encircled 
a large pool with a floating island in the centre. Here we 
found a flock of 22 Black Ducks and a single Wood Duck. The 
former saw us and rose out of range but a few minutes later 
the we flushed the Wood Duck from some grass and I fired my 
choked barrel at it as it was going off. It came down to the 
water but recovering rose above the bushes on the island and 
was lost to sight behind them. Will felt sure that it had 
dropped into the water on the further side and had gone ashore. 
He quickly demonstrated the correctness of this surmise by 
landing and driving out the bird which I killed as soon as it 
got clear of the bushes. The noise which we thus made started 
a flock of ten more Wood Ducks from well back among the stubs 
where there must have been a pool of water that we could not 
see. Less than half-an-hour later this flock returned as we 
were on our way up river and dropped back into the head of the 
meadow. The water about the island was literally covered with 
their feathers. 
