100 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



their arrival iu Portugal on October 22). They frequent small 

 rushy pools out ou the moor, having special predilections for 

 certain spots, to which they resort year after year, though the 

 individual birds are annually killed there. They usually sit 

 close when one has the luck to come across them (pairs or 

 single birds), unfortunately not very often. By the middle 

 of the mouth the young wild ducks begin to " show " on the 

 open water of the loughs, instead of skulking among rushes, 

 or under the long overhanging heather on the lough sides, as 

 they do in August. They also begin to feed further afield, 

 and come down to the patches of oat-stubble, where they 

 sometimes feed with the Blackgame. While waiting for the 

 latter I have seen the ducks circling round to reconnoitre, 

 even before dark. By the end of the month we often have a 

 pack of a hundred, to a hundred and fifty or more, on Darden 

 Lough, where they remain by day pretty constantly through- 

 out the season, and, truth compels me to admit, in but imper- 

 ceptibly diminished numbers. These are not, in my opinion, 

 foreign birds, but an aggregation of many local broods, per- 

 haps all that have been bred in the wild country for miles 

 around. In all temperate countries there appear to be two 

 well-defined and distinct races of Anas hoschas — (1) the 

 native-breeding birds, which are non-migratory, remaining 

 throughout the year ; and (2) the foreign contingent, which 

 migrate from northern latitudes to spend the winter only. 

 The two races are distinguishable by their different types. 

 The foreigners are of a lighter and more slim build, while 

 the sedentary race, by long desuetude, have lost the power of 

 far-sustained flight, having gradually become heavier in body 

 and no longer adapted to perform lengthened migrations. 

 Thus, while our heavy moor-bred Mallard drakes scale over 

 31b., the foreigner, with exactly equal width and expanse of 

 wing, only reaches some 2lb., or at the most 2ilb. These 

 latter, however, are seldom or never met with on the inland 

 moors, their predilections being for the coast and tidal 

 estuaries, where they are the staple fowl. The heavy ducks, 

 on the other hand, are rarely found on salt water, except iu 

 winter, when " frozen out " of their moorland haunts by 

 severe weather. 



