ANSERES. ( 113 ) AN ATI D^. 



THE WIGEON. 



WHEW DUCK, PANDLE WHEW, YELLOW POLL, WHISTLER, 

 WHIM, BALD PATE, HALF DUCK, SMEE DUCK. 



Mareca penelope. 



Who can recount what transmigrations there 

 Are annual made ? What nations come and go ? 

 And how the living clouds on clouds arise ? 

 Injinite wings ! till all the plume-dark air. 

 And rude resounding shore are one wild cry. 



Thomson, Autumn. 



This winter visitor is seen in flocks off the coast, and 

 occasionally in small numbers on the ponds ^ and rivers 

 in the interior of the county. It generally arrives from 

 the north in October and leaves in March or the begin- 

 ning of April. 



Mr. Kelly records that a flock frequented an old water- 

 run of the Leader, between New Mills ground and the 

 haugh, from the beginning to the middle of October some 

 years ago, and that the crop of one which was shot at New- 

 bigging upper pond was full of the grass Poa annua.^ He 

 also mentions that the bird generally associates in Lauder- 

 dale with Mallard and Teal, from which it can easily be 

 distinguished when flushed by the whiteness of its under 

 parts and its more rapid flight.^ The Eev. W. Stobbs of 

 Gordon, in some notes on the birds of that district, alludes 



1 Mr. William Smith, gamekeeper, Duns Castle, informs me that he observed 

 fourteen Wigeon on the lake there on the 3rd of December 1889, and thirty-nine 

 on the 11th of January 1890. He adds that considerable flocks frequent it in 

 winter. 



2 Hist. Ber. Nat. Club, vol. vii. p. 523. 3 j{,;d. vol. viii. p. 147. 



VOL. IL H 



