Clangula clangula americana. Lake Umbagog, Maine. 1897. the piece as it descended. This is the nearest approach to June 8. diving which it has thus far made. It drinks often and copi- ously. After a bath it preens and dries its downy plumage, with great patience and care using its bill like an old bird. June 9. Our little Whistler was alive this morning but he seemed feeble and depressed and as he would eat practically nothing it was evident that we could not hope to rear him. According- ly we took him into the flooded forest and putting on a piece of floating drift wood near the foot of the tree in which he had been hatched backed the boat off a few yards and left him at freedom. He stood erect and motionless for a minute or two looking about him; then entering the water he began swim- mimg, at first slowly and in evident bewilderment. But very soon he gained confidence and struck out more boldly until at the end of a few minutes he was darting hither and thither skimming the surface as lightly as a fluff of thistle down and in courses as erratic as those of the lucky bugs whose gam- bols he disturbed. Now he sipped the water eagerly, next he picked at a floating leaf or darted after some small aquatic insect. Every now and then he would raise the forward part of his body and flap his tiny wings exactly in the manner of an old Duck. The floating sticks and rafts of drift that covered a large part of the surface did not embarass his