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188 THE CONDOR Vol. XIII kept just out of gunshot with an accuracy that was almost uncanny during the spring shooting season, could, in a few short weeks, be converted into the comparatively tame and unsuspicious birds that the nesting female Pintails proved to be. Yet the sleek, well dressed male with his conspicuous white waistcoat and brown head was at all times wary and difficult to approach, aud very few times did we approach to within gunshot of him, although his solicitude for his mate and the nest was quite apparent. We found nests of the Pintail in widely divemiffed locations but there was a peculiar similarity noticeable in all of them which was very different from our ex- perience with the teal. -. The first nest, found May 11, 1907, was probably the most unusually located Fig. 59. PINTAIL'S NEST ON HIGH PRAIRIE ANEARL MILE FROM NEAREST WA?ER nest of the Pintail on record. It was just a trifle less than eighteen feet from the rails of the mai? line of the Bur- lington Route, over which a dozen or more heavy trains thundered every day, and well withiu the railroad right-of- way where section hands and pedestrians passed back and forthcontiuually. The mother bird had found a cavity in the ground, about eight inches in diameter and eight inches deep, and had lined it xvith grass; and the two fresh eggs which it contained on this date were deposited without any downy lining whatever. The female flushed as we passed along the track about twenty feet distant, thus at- tracting our attention. A week later (on the eighteenth) the nest was fairly well lined with down and contained nine eggs, one egg having appar- ently been deposited each day. On May 24 the nest contained eleven eggs and the parent was nmch tamer than on the two preceding visits, allowing us to approach to within fifteen feet of her, and alighting within tweuty yards of us upon being flushed. Another peculiar nest was found May 30, 1908, containing eleven eggs which hatched during the first week in June. This nest was a depression in a perfectly bare sandy flat without a particle of concealment of any kind. The cavity was lo- cated in the most exposed position within hundreds of yards, and was fairly well lined with weed-stems, grass, etc., and well rimmed with down. The brooding female was very conspicuous against the back-ground of bare sand, and could be readily seen from a distance of fifty feet or more. This bird was rather wild and flushed while we were yet some distance from the nest.