362 Habits of the Wigem. 



them, would hardly suppose that they are wild fowl ; for he 

 will often see nearly one hundred of them congregrating with 

 the tame ducks, not sixty yards from the kitchen windows. 

 Protection has restored to them their innate familiarity ; and 

 now I am enabled to say something on certain parts of their 

 economy, which our ornithological writers seem never to have 

 noticed. 



The wigeon is a much more familiar bird than either the 

 pochard or the teal. While these congregate on the water, 

 beyond the reach of man, the wigeon appears to have divested 

 itself of the timidity observable in all other species of wild 

 fowl, and approaches very near to our habitations. A consi- 

 derable time elapsed before I was enabled to account satis- 

 factorily for the wigeon' s remaining here during the night; a 

 circumstance directly at variance with the habits of its con- 

 geners, which, to a bird, pass the night away from the place 

 where they have been staying during the day. But, upon 

 paying a much closer attention to it than I had formerly been 

 accustomed to do, I observed that it differed from them all, 

 both in the nature of its food, and in the time of procuring it. 

 The mallard, the pochard, and the teal obtain nearly the 

 whole of their nourishment during the night. On the con- 

 trary, the wigeon procures its food in the day time, and that 

 food is grass. He who has an opportunity of watching the 

 wigeon when it is undisturbed, and allowed to follow the bent 

 of its own inclinations, will find that, while the mallard, the 

 pochard, and the teal are sporting on the water, or reposing 

 on the bank at their ease, it is devouring with avidity that 

 same kind of short grass, on which the goose is known to 

 feed. Hence, though many flocks of wigeons accompany the 

 other water fowl in their nocturnal wanderings, still numbers 

 of them pass the whole of the night here; and this I know 

 to be a fact, by their singular whistling noise, which is heard 

 at all hours. 



On Jan. 26. 1832, for the first time, I satisfied myself 

 beyond all doubt of what I had long suspected, namely, that 

 wigeons feed upon grass, exactly after the manner of geese. 

 A flock of them was then feeding opposite the windows. I 

 took the large telescope, and distinctly saw them feeding vora- 

 ciously on the green short blades of grass. Whilst I am 

 writing this (Jan. 12. 1835) the ground is covered with snow, 

 except under some large elm trees ; and at the root of these 

 there are, just now, above one hundred wigeons and thirty 

 coots, all feeding on the grass which is not concealed by the 

 snow. 



In other places, where persecution is the wigeon's lot, no 



