194 BRITISH SEA BIRDS. 
caught in the flight-nets on the Wash, a locality 
which is, or used to be twenty years ago, a favourite 
resort of this Duck. 
A few Wigeons remain in our Islands to breed, 
frequenting the northern counties of Scotland, in- 
cluding the Orkneys and the Shetlands, but the vast 
majority return to the Arctic regions to do so, _ Its 
favourite nesting-places are scrubby woodlands, 
swamps, and heaths, clothed with coarse herbage, 
studded with lakes and tarns, and intersected by 
streams, Although not gregarious at this period, 
the numbers of nests found scattered over a small 
area, suggests at least a social tendency. The nest 
is usually made close to the water-side, amongst 
heath or grass, or sheltered by a little bush, and is 
made of dry herbage and leaves, warmly lined with 
down plucked from the body of the female. The 
six to ten eggs are cream- or buffish-white, smooth 
in texture, but with little gloss. These are laid in 
May. 
PINTAIL DUCK. 
This elegant species, the Axas acuta of Linnzeus, 
by some modern writers generically distinguished 
as Dajila acuta, is, next to the Wigeon perhaps, 
the most abundant of the non-diving Ducks upon 
the coast. Like that bird it visits the British seas 
in some numbers in autumn, returning north in 
spring. From the extreme length of the two 
central upper tail coverts, which project two inches 
or more beyond the tail, this Duck has been termed 
Se ee ere 
