Cambridge, Mass. 2 1909, March 16. Indeed I doubt if ever before I have seen birds of any kind swim so swiftly. The combined movements of such a group were often too sudden and bewildering to be easily followed or interpreted. But the general plan of action seemed to consist of a sort of dress parade so ordered as to give the rival drakes an opportunity to display their respective charms of plumage and deportment to the best advantage and in direct yet not unfriendly competition with one another. Their evolutions were apparently for the most part, seemingly regulated by established system or custom and some of them were strikingly beautiful. Thus eight or nine drakes, strung out in single file but so close together that the bill of every one was almost at the tail of the next, would swim past a female at top speed and then turn instantly, each bird on its own axis, as if at some given signal, before starting back in reverse order, that is with the bird which had been the last now leading. I saw this done a dozen times or more the distance traversed in a straight line on the different occasions varying from ten to fifty yards. When a number of drakes started after a female that was swimming away from them they usually overtook her quickly and passed her in the manner which I have just described but sometimes the chase would continue for one or two hundred yards. When overtaken she usually stopped and seemed to watch the behaviour of Courtship Of Goeseandus. 110