52 BIEDS OF ICELAND 



No description of so familiar a bird is necessary. 

 Hybrids between this and other ducks are not very 

 unusual, but I have heard of occurrences of the kind 

 in Iceland. 



Anas strepera, Linn. Gadwall. 



Native name: 'Gra-ond,' vaguely. Grondal specifies 

 it as ' Litla gra-ond/ but that name is not par- 

 ticularly applicable, and I have always heard it 

 given to the female Teal. 



Very scarce, and so far only met with on Myvatn in 

 Southern ]}ingeyrar Sysla, as far as I have heard. 

 Faber was the first to discover it there in June 1819, 

 but he obtained no specimens. W. Proctor got the 

 eofTs in 1837, and later he had two skins of the bird 

 sent to him (Newton, lUs, 1864, p. 132). In 1862 

 Messrs. Shepherd and Upcher not only got the eggs, 

 but shot the bird from them, and a few days later the 

 drake. In 1885 Carter and I got the eggs, and I saw 

 the bird quite near enough to the nest to feel pretty 

 certain about it. Later we compared the eggs and 

 down with Mr. Seebohm's, and none of us had a shade 

 of doubt left on the subject. I have had no definite 

 records since. 



The nest is made of grass, and is sometimes at a 

 distance from water; like all ducks' nests it gets 

 a lining of down plucked from the parent's breast, as 

 soon as incubation begins. The eggs, six to twelve 

 in number, are of a greenish buff, and a shade over 



