THE WILD DUCK 185 



wounded, till the former can get into a place of security, and then 

 return and collect them together." 



From this instinctive cunning. Turner, witli good reason, imagines 

 them to be the chenaldpex, or Tox-Goose, of the ancients ; tlie natives 

 of the Orkneys to this day call them the Sly-Goose, from an attribute 

 of that quadruped. 



Sheld-drake are more numerous during the summer in North 

 Britain than in the South, but in winter they are driven l)y the 

 freezing of their feeding-grounds to more temperate climates. Here 

 numbers of them meet the fate of wild fowl generally, and specimens 

 are often to be seen exposed in the English markets, though their 

 flesh is held in little estimation as food. 



Sheld means parti-coloured. 'Shelled' is still current in the 

 eastern counties of England. Shelled duck is the more proper 

 appellation. Howard Saunders calls it Sheld-duck always. 



THE WILD DUCK 



ANAS BOSCAS 



Head and neck dark green ; at the base of the neck a white collar ; upper 

 parts marked with fine zigzag lines of ash-brown and gi'ey ; breast 

 chestnut ; lower parts greyish white, marked with fine zigzag ash-brown 

 lines ; speculum dark blue with purple and green reflections, bordered 

 above and below with black and white ; four middle feathers of the tail 

 curled upwards bill greenish yellow ; irides red-brown ; feet orange. 

 Length twenty-four inches. Female smaller ; plumage mottled with 

 various shades of brown and grey ; throat whitish ; speculum as in the 

 male ; all the tail-feathers straight. Eggs greenish white. 



Its size, abundance, and value as an article of food, have given 

 to the Wild Duck an importance which belongs to few other British 

 birds ; and the modes of capturing it are so varied and interesting 

 that they are often to be met with described in works not exclusively 

 devoted to natural history. For this reason I shall in great measure 

 confine my notice of this bird to such particulars in its history as 

 the reader may prol^ably have an (Opportunity of verifying l)y 

 his own observation in the course of his rambles among places 

 which it habitually frequents. 



The term ' Wild Duck ', properly appUcable to the female bird 

 only (' MaUard ' being the distinctive name of the male) , is generally 

 employed to include both sexes. The difference in the plumage 

 of the two is very great, as, indeed, is the case with all those varieties 

 of the same bird which, under the name of ' Tame Ducks,' have 

 altered the least from their natural wild type. Yet in the summer 

 months, when both sexes moult,^ the Mallard puts off the whole 

 of his characteristic gay plumage, and appears in the sober brown 



1 Formerly spelt ' mute ', from the Latin muto, to change. 



