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Old Squaw — Part 2
Images coming soon.
The Harlequin Duck (Histrionicus histrionicus), also called Lords and Ladies, comes down to our more northern coasts of sea and large inland lakes only when ice has closed its feeding grounds at the north; but no clanging call invites our attention when these gay masqueraders appear on the scene, tricked out in black, white, blue, and reddish brown applied in stripes and spots; and as they keep well out from shore to hunt in our open waters, few get a good look at their fantastic coats before they return to the north to nest. The female can scarcely be distinguished from the female old squaw, except by her dusky under parts. A harlequin's flesh is dark and unpalatable, for fishy food is its staple, and no one not hard pressed by hunger would care to eat it. From the characteristics of habit that distinguish all ducks of this subfamily, the harlequin differs little, except in living near rushing, dashing streams of the Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountains and northward during the nesting season. Six or more yellowish or greenish buff eggs are laid in hollow stumps near the water; and the fact that the young ducklings are not swept away by the swift current of the stream they take to and live on, without returning to the nest once it is left, testifies to the remarkable propelling power of their feet. These ducks are most expert divers, too, and when alarmed will plunge like a grebe, and swim under water to parts unknown.