Clangula clangula americana. Lake Umbagog, Maine. 1897. compounded and perhaps the usual number laid by one bird does June 8. not exceed eight or nine. It would be interesting to learn whether or no the labor of incubation is fairly divided and also if all the young are cared for by one parent. The mys- terious disappearance of four of the eggs from the nest watched this morning suggests that they may have been hatched and the young have been taken away by another bird. Of another thing I am pretty well satisfied, viz. that the Whistler is often polygamous. I have seen here this season only four drakes (one near the nest at Peaslee's brook with a single female (we saw only one), one at Tidswell's Point with four females, one at the Cutlet with at least five females) to at least twenty and probably thirty females. Watrous thinks that the number of eggs in a nest corres- ponds pretty closely with its capacity and I believe that he is right. When the cavity is small at the bottom the bird that takes possession of it fills it with her own set. When it is large other Whistlers and occasionally a Merganser, also lay in it until it can hold no more eggs. John Brown of Up- ton tells me that he once took 21 eggs from a Goosander's nest. On first visiting the Whistler's nest this morning I took one of the young and sent it to the boat by Gilbert intending to return it to the next after breakfast, but the sudden