COMMON DUCK. 37 



of a tree, and a Duck has been known to occupy the deserted 

 nest of a Crow. The eggs, from five to ten, are pale dull- 

 green or greenish-white, two inches and a quarter in length, 

 an inch and nine-twelfths in breadth. When incubation 

 commences, the male takes his leave, though he keeps in the 

 neighbourhood, and joining others, undergoes his annual 

 moult. The female sits very closely, and rather than leave 

 her charge, will often allow a person to approach quite near. 

 One day while searching in the marsh at the head of Dud- 

 dingston Loch for some plants, I was suddenly arrested, by 

 observing among my feet, some living creature of considerable 

 size. Perceiving it to be a Duck I instantly, perhaps instinc- 

 tively, pounced upon it. But thinking the eight eggs a suffi- 

 cient prize, I threw the poor bird into the air, when she flew 

 off" in silence. Frequently in leaving the nest she covers it 

 rudely with straws and feathers, probably for the purpose of 

 concealing the eggs. The young are hatched in four weeks, 

 and, being covered with stiffish down, and quite alert, accom- 

 pany their mother to the water, where they swim and dive as 

 expertly as if they had been born in it. The mother shows 

 the greatest attention to them, protects them from birds, 

 feigns lameness to withdraw intruders from them, and leading 

 them about from place to place, secures for them a proper 

 supply of food. Sometimes the young birds are destroyed by 

 pike, or fall a prey to rapacious birds. They are extremely 

 active, and elude pursuit by diving and remaining under the 

 water, with nothing but the bill above. I once came upon a 

 whole brood of half-grown ducklings in a ditch, when in a 

 moment they all disappeared under the water, and, although I 

 searched everywhere for them, did not succeed in tracing a 

 single individual. 



When the young are well grown, and the female replumed, 

 the male commonly joins the flock, and they continue together. 

 Several flocks often unite, but generally these birds are not 

 very gregarious. Being highly and justly esteemed as food. 

 Mallards are shot in great numbers, and are plentiful in our 

 markets. Although they are of a more elegant form, and 

 much more active than the domestic Ducks, the latter often 

 resemble them so closely in colour, as hardly to be distin- 



