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Brewster, Breeding Habits of Golden-eye Duck. 
207 
NOTES ON THE BREEDING HABITS OF THE AMERI¬ 
CAN GOLDEN-EYED DUCK OR WHISTLER 
(CLANG UIA CLANGULA AMERICANA). 
BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 
Plates VI and VII. 
In 1897 I spent the last two weeks of May and nearly the 
whole of June at Lake Umbagog, living in a house-boat and 
devoting my time to studying and photographing birds and nests. 
Resides a cook and a man to manage the boat, I had with me two 
assistants, Mr. R. A. Gilbert, who helped me in various ways, and 
Mr. Clarence H. Watrous, a keen and persistent nest-hunter, to 
whose tireless efforts I was indebted for the subjects of some of 
my best notes and pictures. Our floating house proved admirably 
adapted to the purposes of such a trip, having, in addition to 
comfortable living and sleeping accommodations, a small but 
well arranged dark room in which the negatives were developed. 
By sculling when the weather was calm, with the aid of a sail 
when there was a favoring breeze, we were able to change our 
ground whenever we wished to do so, although we often found it 
profitable to spend several days, and occasionally as much as a 
week, in one place, moored to the shore at the head of some 
sheltered cove, where the songs of shy forest birds rose on every 
side, and the delicious scent of the balsams stole in through the 
open cabin windows, or riding at anchor sufficiently far out in the 
lake to escape the black flies and mosquitoes. Our daily excur¬ 
sions were made chiefly by water in canoes, and extended not 
only to every part of the lake, but for considerable distances up 
the rivers which flow into it. Altogether it was a delightful 
experience, full of interest, and not wanting in novelty, despite 
the fact that the region was one with which I had long been 
familiar. 
During this season I learned much that was new to me con¬ 
cerning the breeding habits of the Golden-eyed Duck or Whistler. 
This species still nests abundantly at Umbagog, especially about 
the outlet and throughout the bottom lands of the Lower Megallo- 
way River, where the forests were killed half a century ago by 
