202 WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



dead tips of the ferns, as it passes over them, look 

 Hke brazen ferns. 



Slowly it passes on, over a dead flag-edged pool 

 on the moor, that shows for a few moments like a 

 mighty sheet of polished copper, with great masses 

 of undefined purple shadows reflected in it. Then 

 it vanishes, leaving behind it a cold yellowish-grey 

 light, just enough to define near objects by, and that 

 is all. Swit, swit, swit, swit, swit, swit, swit ! sounds 

 above us over the tops of the bare trees. It is 

 caused by the ducks circling round on swift-beating 

 pinions, before they drop down to feed. They have 

 come up from the mere below. 



They are satisfied with their aerial survey of all 

 things below them, for they lower and come in, or 

 rather down, to feed. From our damp hiding-place 

 we can see some flickering grey shadows ; these are 

 the ducks rapidly flickering their wings in short beats 

 to break the force of their settling. We just catch 

 one or two more flecks of their wings, and then we 

 can hear them at work for acorns ; we are not able 

 to see them now they are on the ground. Rustle, 

 rustle, rustle, spatter, spatter ! as their bills sift and 

 nozzle about with the softest of " quirk, quirk, 

 quirks ! " and velvety quacks from the ducks, for 

 there are ducks as well as Mallards feedinof. 



The Mallard is omnivorous ; the dreaded potato 

 disease, which is the cause of sad loss to the rustic 

 population, is to the Mallard a gain and a luxury. 

 Where whole fields planted with potatoes go wrong 

 with the disease, just as they are fit to dig up, those 



