migrates separately; and the old males, which abandoned the females when incubation commenced, set out in groups of eight or ten. Indeed, it is not common to see birds of this species assemble in such flocks as their relatives the Mallards, although they at times associate with almost all the fresh-water Ducks. The males, on leaving the females, join together in small bands, and retire into the interior of the marshes, where they remain until their moult is completed. My young friend COOLEDGE brought me a pair shot on the 4th of July, in Labrador, in so ragged a state that very few feathers remained even on the wings. On his approaching them, they skimmed over the surface of the water with such rapidity, that when shot at they seemed as if flying away. On examining these individuals I found them to be sterile, and I am of opinion that those which are prolific moult at a later period, nature thus giving more protracted vigour to those which have charge of a young brood. I think, Reader, you will be of the same opinion, when I have told you, that on the 5th of July I found some which had young, and which were still in full plumage, and others, that were broodless, almost destitute of feathers. As many of the nests found in Labrador differed from the one mentioned above, I will give you an account of them. In several instances, we found them imbedded in the deep moss, at the distance of a few feet or yards from the water. They were composed of a great quantity of dry grass and other vegetable substances; and the eggs were always placed directly on this bed without the intervention of the down and feathers, which, however, surrounded them, and which, as I observed, the bird always uses to cover them when she is about to leave the nest for a time. Should she be deprived of her eggs, she goes in search of a male, and lays another set; but unless a robbery of this kind happens, she raises only a single brood in the season. But although this is the case in Labrador, I was assured that this species rears two broods yearly in Texas, although, having been but a short time in that country, I cannot vouch for the truth of this assertion. The eggs are two inches and a quarter in length, one inch and five-eighths in breadth, shaped like those of the domestic fowl, with a smooth surface, and of a uniform yellowish-white colour, like that of ivory tarnished by long exposure. The young, like those of the Mallard, acquire the full beauty of their spring plumage before the season of reproduction commences, but exhibit none of the curious changes which that species undergoes.