136 BY THE WATERSIDE ONCE MORE 
to the nest, and covered this with cut grass 
so that the bird might ‘think it were all 
right loike,’ and come back to it. I at once 
saw the hen accompanied by the male swim- 
ming about fifty yards away. A swan and 
the male great grebe of the nest we had 
found the other day (see p. 122) also appeared 
on the scene, and a male tufted duck flew 
over my head. The white of the under part 
of the body showed distinctly. His flight 
was very rapid, and as Ted would have said 
in sportsman’s phraseology, he would have 
required “some stopping.’ The male wigeon 
was easily distinguished by the white on the 
sides of the wings, the female being only black 
and brown. He kept swimming about close 
to his mate all the time, showing that in the 
case of the wigeon, just as with other ducks, 
the male duck does not leave the hen till she 
is fairly sitting (see remarks on the mallard 
in Part I, p. 145). The nest was about ten 
inches in diameter and built in a hollow in 
the ground (see wigeon’s nest, Part II, p. 
181) and contained nine eggs of their usual 
