A gentleman who delighted in watching the Wood Duck, tells about one that built her nest in the hollow of a tree that hung over the water. He was anxious to see how the little ones, when hatched, would get down. In a few days he knew that the ducklings were out, for he could hear their _pee, pee, pee_. They came to the edge of the nest, one by one, and tumbled out into the water. You know a duck can swim as soon as it comes out of the egg. Sometimes the nest is in the hollow of a tree that is a short distance from the water. Now how do you suppose the ducklings get there as they do? If the nest is not far from the ground, the mother bird lets them drop from it on the dried grass and leaves under the tree. She then carries them in her bill, one by one, to the water and back to the nest. If the nest should be far from the ground, she carries them down one by one. This same gentleman says that he once saw a Wood Duck carry down thirteen little ones in less than ten minutes. She took them in her bill by the back of the neck or the wing. When they are a few days old she needs only to lead the way and the little ones will follow. The Wood Duck is also called Summer Duck. This is because it does not stay with us during the winter, as most ducks do. It goes south to spend the winter and comes back north early in the spring. THE WOOD DUCK. Quite the most beautiful of the native Ducks, with a a richness of plumage which gives it a bridal or festive appearance, this bird is specifically named _Spousa_, which means betrothed. It is also called Summer Duck, Bridal Duck, Wood Widgeon, Acorn Duck and Tree Duck. It is a fresh water fowl, and exclusively so in the selection of its nesting haunts. It inhabits the whole of temperate North America, north to the fur countries, and is found in Cuba and sometimes in Europe. Its favorite haunts are wooded bottom-lands, where it frequents the streams and ponds, nesting in hollows of the largest trees. Sometimes a hole in a horizontal limb is chosen that seems too small to hold the Duck's plump body, and occasionally it makes use of the hole of an Owl or Woodpecker, the entrance to which has been enlarged by decay.