DUCKS. 149 



WILD DITCK. A7ias hoscas, L. 



Yarrell, iv. p, 358 ; Dresser, vi. p. 469 ; Uns List, p. 125 ; Anas 

 boschas, Ilariing, p. 62 ; SeeboJnn, iii. p. 559; Pulteneu's 

 List, p. 21. 



Although most of the birds that flock here in 

 winter are visitors from a distance, a good many 

 Wild Ducks are reared in the county, where there 

 are many favourable breeding-haunts. Before the 

 end of the close season, that is, the end of July, the 

 quiet creeks of Poole harbour are alive with these 

 birds, but a few days after its termination a great 

 change ensues; their favourite haunts are abandoned; 

 silence and solitude reign supreme ; every bird has 

 been shot or scared away by the relentless gunner. 



Colonel Hawker, in alluding to "flapper-shooting," 

 of which, as a true sportsman, he had no very high 

 opinion, gives an accurate idea of the bird's haunts 

 and habits. He says: — "To find a brood of these, 

 go about July and hunt the rushes in the deepest 

 and most retired parts of some brook or trout-stream, 

 where, if you spring the old Duck, you may be pretty 

 sure that the brood is not far ofi:'. When once found, 

 ' flappers ' are easily killed, as they attain their full 

 growth before their wings are fledged ; and for this 

 reason the sport is more like hunting water-rats 

 than shooting birds. If you leave the brood after 

 having disturbed them, the old bird will remove 

 them to another place long before the following day. 

 W^hen the ' flappers ' take wing, they assume the 

 name of 'Wild Ducks.' About the month of 



