Anas obscura. Lake Umbagog, Maine. 1894. It was getting almost too dark to shoot and I was beginn= Sept. 12. ing to think of returning to the boats when against the sky towards the N.W. I saw a long dusky line advancing. It proved to be the big flock of Black Ducks which I saw last evening. Their approach was really imposing. There were more than fif- ty of them and they formed a line fully 100 yards long and stretched at right angles to the line of their flight. Thus they came all abreast, the stately birds. As they neared the marsh every wing, as if at a given signal, ceased its rapid pulsations and the great birds shot down on a steep incline, making a rushing sound similar and quite equal to that of a heavy gust of wind in a grove of pines. It was an exciting moment for it seems that I had chosen the very spot where the flock had intended to alight, and as the centre of the column charged directly at me and the wings closed in around me, I could not help feeling for an instant as if the birds were about to make a combined onslaught on me. 1895. At Pine Hill Pond I quickly discovered a bird which I Sept. 10. took at the time for a Wood Duck, but which afterwards proved to be a Black Duck, lying asleep with its head buried in its feathers on an inclining tree trunk fully eight feet above the level of the water.