62 BIRD WATCHING 



in a lesser degree, may be said of the partridge, and 

 in all cases it is obvious that the bird is very 

 much excited and ausser sick. 



Darwin, if I remember rightly,* found it difficult 

 to believe that birds, when they thus distract our 

 attention from their young to themselves, do so with 

 a full consciousness of what they are doing and 

 why they are doing it. When the female wild-duck, 

 however, acts in this manner, it is difficult, I think, 

 to escape from this conclusion. She flaps for a long 

 way over the surface of the water, pausing every 

 now and again and waiting, as though to see the 

 effect of her ruse, and continuing her tactics as soon 

 as you get up to her. Having thus led you a long 

 distance away, she rises, and leaving the river, flies 

 in an extended circle, which will ultimately bring 

 her back to it by the other bank when you are well 

 out of the way. The chicks, meanwhile, have (of 

 course) scuttled in amongst the reeds and rushes, 

 though they often take some little while to conceal 

 themselves. She acts thus on a river or broad stretch 

 of water, which enables her to keep you in sight 

 for some time. But it is obvious that if you come 

 upon her with her family in a very narrow and sharply 

 winding stream, the first bend of it will hide you 

 from her, and she would then, assuming that she 

 is acting intelligently, have all the agony of mind 

 of not knowing whether her plan was succeeding or 

 not. It was in such a situation that I met her only 

 last spring, and to my surprise — and indeed, admira- 

 tion — instead of flapping along the water as I have 

 always known her to do before in such a contre- 



* But I have not been able to find the passage, so may be mistaken. 



