THE GEESE, SWANS, AND DUCKS. 235 



3. The Ducks. 



[These are conveniently divided into two groups, the 

 non-diving, and the sea- or diving, ducks — the former in- 

 cluding such familiar species as the Widgeon. Mallard, and 

 teal, while to the latter belong the less known Pochard, 

 Smew, Scoter, and Eider. It is interesting to note that in 

 captivity almost all ducks will interbreed; and they all 

 have a curious habit of adding down to the nest only when 

 the eggs are laid and incubation is about to start.] 



(a) The Non-Diving Ducks. 



Although not included in the so-called " sea-ducks," the 

 Sheld-Duck is never met with far from the coast, and I 

 Sheld- have often observed it in Hampshire on little- 

 Duck, frequented j)arts of the sandy foreshore. It is 

 a bird of extremely shy habits, and it flies at no great 

 height and at only moderate speed. The female is a very 

 noisy bird. It would be difficult to mistake this hand- 

 some bird for any other, with its glossy green head and 

 throat, its deep-red knobbed bill, the white band beneath 

 the green throat, the dark patch on the white belly, and 

 the black tip to the white tail. If only every bird were 

 as conspicuously marked, binoculars would be almost 

 superfluous. The plumage is alike in both sexes. The 

 sheld-duck feeds for the most part on marine plants and 

 small molluscs, also on sandhoppers. It breeds in May 

 in some hole, usually a rabbit-burrow, but also in round 

 tunnels of its own excavating, or, very rarely, in natural 

 fissures in the rocks. The nest, at some considerable dis- 

 tance from the light, is of grasses lined with down. Eggs, 

 8 or 10, 2^ inches; creamy white. 



Ruddy Sheld-Duch. — A wanderer from the South, which 

 has been obtained on several occasions in Ireland, and of 

 which a number were obtained as recently as 1892. In 

 summer the adult male is unmistakable by reason of the 



