150 Bird - Lore
very near their nests. The nests, hardly deserving the name, were merely small piles of wet, dead rushes on floating masses of similar rub- bish, on which the three dark, spotted eggs were hardly visible.
In the drier portions of the slough, near the edges, we came frequently to open, muddy areas, where the (lead reeds had been beaten down Hat by the winter's storms, and in one of these we saw the remains of a great nest, a large pile of dead reeds and flags, three feet in diameter, but slightly hollowed in the center, and containing one large, dirty, white egg, the deserted home of the Canada Goose, from which both old and young had long since departed, and were nowhere to be seen.
Not far from here we flushed a large. brownish Duck from a thick, tangled mass of dead flags, where we discovered a nest full of buff-colored eggs, sixteen in number. They were unmistakably Redhead's eggs, and we soon had a good look at the bird as she came back, circling about us, accompanied by her mate.
Several more nests of this species were found in similar locations. generally well built of dry reeds, deeply hollowed and profusely lined with white down. In one case. we found as many as twenty-two eggs in the nest, arranged in two layers, one above the other. The Redheads were the most abundant of the Ducks in the slough, and probably laid their eggs in each others nests, to some extent, as they certainly laid in all the other Ducks’ nests.
As we waded along the outer edge of the reeds, exploring the scat- tered clumps of tall rushes growing in the deep. open water, a great splashing and flapping was heard, and out rushed a large gray Duck, almost in our faces; as she flew past us, we could clearly see the long, slender, pointed bill which marked her as a Canvasback. At last we had found the home of this famous game»hird. The nest was well con- cealed in the center of the clump, completely invisible from the outside; it was a bulky mass of rushes with only a little grayish down for a lining. There were eleven eggs in the nest,—seven dark olive eggs of the Canvas~ back, and four lighter, buffy eggs of the Redhead. The Canvasback must be easily imposed upon, for all the nests we found contained from one to four eggs of either the Redhead or the Ruddy Duck. The Canvasbacks are close sitters, as we always flushed them at short dis- tances. At least one brood had hatched out, as we saw the mother bird swimming out into the open water with five little ones close at her heels.
The shyest of all the Ducks were the little Ruddy Ducks; we saw the males swimming about in the open water at a distance, but we never flushed them from. or saw them near, their nests. They retired to the innermost recesses of the tallest and thickest reeds to build their nests, where they were so well hidden that it was difficult for us to find them
