Aix sponsa. Lake Umbagog, Maine. 1897. We (Purdie, Will and I) next turned into the meadow op- Sept.15. posite (and a little below) Pulpit Rock (on the Megalloway). It proved to be flooded to the very edges of the woods. Near the upper end, however, a belt of grass and bushes encircled a large pool with a floating island in the centre. Here we found a flock of 22 Black Ducks and a single Wood Duck. The former saw us and rose out of range but a few minutes later we flushed the Wood Duck from some grass and I fired my choked barrel at it as it was going off. It came down to the water but recovering rose above the bushes on the island and was lost to sight behind them. Will felt sure that it had dropped into the water on the further side and had gone ashore. He quickly demonstrated the correctness of this surmise by landing and driving out the bird which I killed as soon as it got clear of the bushes. The noise which we thus made started a flock of ten more Wood Ducks from well back among the stubs where there must have been a pool of water that we could not see. Less than half-an-hour later this flock returned as we were on our way up river and dropped back into the head of the meadow. The water about the island was literally covered with their feathers. 81