Outing . found later, were laidby two birds, as five of the eggs hatcheda week after the rest. One other nestwas a mallards, but all the rest werecanvasbacks. In every case the female canvasbackwas sheltering her eggs from the they flew directly off when wewere ten or twelve paces away. At thethird nest the duck stuck to her splendid creature lay flat on thenest, with neck extended toward us,snake-like. Her peculiar bill, taperingto a point, and her dark eyes, conspicu-ous amid the lighter brown plumage ofthe head, gave her a singularly weirdappearance. She flew with grea
Outing . found later, were laidby two birds, as five of the eggs hatcheda week after the rest. One other nestwas a mallards, but all the rest werecanvasbacks. In every case the female canvasbackwas sheltering her eggs from the they flew directly off when wewere ten or twelve paces away. At thethird nest the duck stuck to her splendid creature lay flat on thenest, with neck extended toward us,snake-like. Her peculiar bill, taperingto a point, and her dark eyes, conspicu-ous amid the lighter brown plumage ofthe head, gave her a singularly weirdappearance. She flew with great reluc-tance when we were very close. Nowonder her ten eggs were all one of them hatched that nightin the incubator, the first of our after-wards numerous family. The nesting location chosen by thesecanvasbacks was peculiar. Instead ofbeing, as is more usual, placed in clumpsof reeds or rushes or areas of these outin the lake or slough, in every case butone those now examined were built back. YOUNG CANVASBACKS IN QUEST OF THE CANVASBACK 521 from small, shallow pools in the marsh,from one to five yards from the edge, incontinuous areas of a peculiar sedge. Itwas last seasons growth, only aboutwaist-high, in shallow water and on firmbottom, distinguished by a three-corneredstem. The nest v\ as a mound of deadstems of the sedge, built up almost tower-like, in some cases over a foot above thewater. The sedge all around in a circlewas pulled up or trampled down, leavingthe nest in a little open pond severalfeet wide, without anything to concealit, for it was visible from some little dis-tance as one waded about. The one ex-ception was a nest of this type, built inan area of broken-down cat-tails. Theeggs we took were quickly wrapped andput under waterproof in a pail, as we had made the rounds, thelast part in a canoe to a redheads nest,the wind was so violent that we wereunable to force the canoe back to thepower-boat. They, too, were hardlyable to drive ou
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade, booksubjectsports, booksubjecttravel
