488 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
very careful to hide the eggs with leaves and grass 
whenever she leaves the nest, and so well does she 
do this that her nest may easily be passed by without 
being seen, even when placed in a tolerably open 
situation. 
The principal food of the Wild Duck is grain, 
seeds, worms, slugs, insects and small fish: amongst 
the vegetable part of its food it seems to prefer 
small water crowfoot, spring-water starwort, and the 
roots and stems of the common hornwort.* The 
stomach has also been found to contain sand, shells, 
sea-weed and potatoes—some of the latter still 
whole, and one of them a little more than an inch 
in diameter.t These birds seek for food mostly at 
night, setting out on the search late in the evening, 
and returning in the morning. My tame ones prac- 
tice this habit with great regularity: setting off 
always a little before sunset, and spreading out 
through the grass-fields, they make a walking expe- 
dition, sometimes of considerable extent: when thus 
out they are very wild, and will not allow any one to 
approach within a hundred yards of them, all rising 
on the slightest alarm and returning to the pond, 
which is their usual home: when once there they 
are as tame as ever. In a wild state they set off on 
this expedition with about the same regularity, but 
« * Zoologist’ for 1865, p. 9537. 
+ Id., 1866 (Second Series), p. 291. 
