WILD DUCK. 15 
When the debate has ended, the whole flock take wing in 
separate parties, and return again in like manner soon after 
dawn the following morning. 
They are believed to remain in pairs throughout the year, 
and the young birds to choose their mates before the anni- 
versary of their first summer. 
The nest of this species, constructed the latter end of 
April, is placed, unless in a few rare exceptional instances, 
some of which will presently be mentioned, on the ground 
in a dry place, often near, but on the other hand not 
unfrequently at a distance from water; in some cases under 
a hedge, and in others in an open field, or in a wood, but 
under shelter of some kind; sometimes in marshy spots. It 
is smal! in size, little more than six inches in the inner width, 
and regularly formed of dry grass or other vegetable materials; 
the lining being down, to the thickness of between two and 
three inches. 
As Mr. Hewitson observes, ‘We should scarcely expect to 
find the nest of the Wild Duck in a tree, and yet several 
instances have occurred in which it has chosen for itself a 
site thus elevated, and apparently uncongenial to its usual 
habits. Mr. Tuke has met with a nest of this species in 
the grounds of Castle Howard, in a large tree, twenty-five 
feet above the ground, and fifty yards from the edge of the 
water. Mr. Tunstall speaks of one at Etchingham, in Sussex, 
which was built in an oak tree twenty-five feet above the 
ground, and contained nine eggs; and Mr. Selby says that a 
Wild Duck laid its eggs in the nest of a Crow, at least 
thirty feet from the ground.’ Others have been found at a 
height of ten and eighteen feet. 
In Daniels’ ‘Rural Sports,’ mention is made of the deserted 
nest of a Hawk, in a large oak, having been appropriated 
by a Wild Duck; and Montagu speaks of one built between 
the trunk and the boughs of a large elm tree, and of another 
in a willow tree overhanging some water. Meyer mentions 
one found by him on the stump of an old willow tree; and 
G. B. Clarke, Esq., in ‘The Naturalist,’ volume i, page 116, 
one built on the fragment of a. broken branch of an oak 
about twelve feet from the ground, and a foot and a 
half from the trunk. Another was found at Thornton Abbey, 
in Lincolnshire, near the top of a large ivy-covered ash tree; 
another in an old ruin. Sir William Jardine mentions one 
