WATER BIRDS. 219 
streams; yet at such seasons they often suffer severely 
from want, and become quite emaciated if the frost is of 
long continuance, losing much of their usual shyness 
and resorting to the fields. 
A site for her nest is by no means invariably selected 
by the wild duck in the vicinity of water. The long 
heath on our open forest is constantly chosen for that 
purpose, and numberless are the nests | have known 
where the nearest stream has been at least a mile dis- 
tant. How the young, when first hatched, were con- 
veyed to the water, long surprised me; that it is done 
as soon as they break the shell I have no doubt, for 
though I have often found the eggs before hatching, and 
the empty shells after, | never met with the young ones. 
The extraordinary fact that they occasionally placed 
their nests in trees convinced me that the parent birds 
must in such cases carry their young at least to the 
ground ; and I do not now doubt that this is their com- 
mon practice where the distance to water is too great for 
the young ones to travel on foot. 
I knew a nest which was placed in an evergreen in 
the pleasure grounds at Thoresby, and from which the 
young were hatched and brought safely off. Another 
instance came under my notice in 1856, in which the 
nest was constructed in a large beech tree, in an avenue 
in the same grounds, at the height of forty feet from the 
ground, and from this great elevation the young ones 
were safely conveyed to water. 
The late Mr. Mansell of Thoresby related to me the 
following instance of the parent bird actually conveying 
her young to water, which he himself witnessed. He 
was passing one morning at daybreak, in the early part 
of May, under a large ash tree, which was thickly 
