40 ANAS BOSCHAS. 



great care, and I have often been amused at the trouble the 

 poor Duck is put to in collecting dead leaves and straw to 

 cover her eggs, when they are laid in a well-kept flower-bed. 

 I often have a handful of straw laid on the grass at a conve- 

 nient distance from the nest, which the old bird soon carries 

 oif, and makes use of. The Drakes, though they take no 

 portion of the nesting labours, appear to keep a careful watch 

 near at hand during the time the Duck is sitting. The half- 

 breeds have a peculiarity in common with the Wild Duck, 

 which is, that they always pair, each Drake taking charge of 

 only one Duck — not, as is the case with the tame Ducks, 

 taking to himself a dozen wives. The young, too, when first 

 hatched, have a great deal of the shyness of Wild Ducks, 

 showing itself in a propensity to run off and hide in any hole 

 or corner that is handy. With regard to the larder, the 

 half-wild Ducks are an improvement on both the tame and 

 wild, being superior to either in delicacy and flavour ; their 

 active and neat appearance, too, make them a much more 

 ornamental object (as they walk about in search of worms on 

 the lawn or field) than a waddling, corpulent, barn-yard 

 Duck." 



Young. — The young are at first covered with close, 

 stiffish down, of a greyish-yellow colour, variegated with 

 dusky on the upper parts. The downy covering continues 

 for a month or more, when the first plumage is gradually 

 perfected. The young are exceedingly active, dive expertly, 

 hide themselves when alarmed under banks, in holes, or 

 among reeds or other rank herbage, and seem to feed more on 

 insects, slugs, and other small animals, than on vegetable 

 substances. A curious anecdote of a brood of Wild Ducks, 

 told by his keeper, is thus related by Mr. St. John : — " He 

 found in some very rough marly ground, which was formerly 

 a peat-moss, eight young Ducks nearly full-grown, prisoners, 

 as it were, in one of the old peat-holes. Tliey had evidently 

 tumbled in some time before, and had managed to subsist on 

 the insects, &c., that it contained, or that fell into it. From 

 the manner in which they had undermined the banks of their 

 watery prison, the birds must have been in it for some weeks. 



