220 British Birds ^ 



Decoys on the Essex coast were worked constantly 

 and successfully, which for many years now have 

 been dismantled and unused. I well remember, when 

 I was a lad of ten or twelve, being at a house in 

 Tolleshunt D'Arcy, on the farm belonging to which 

 was an active Decoy, and seeing the birds which had 

 been taken in the course of one morning. The 

 numbers were so great that many of the undermost 

 Ducks, where the great accumulation had taken place 

 at the end of the "pipe," had died of pressure and 

 suffocation, and some even were sensibly flattened by 

 the superincumbent weight of their fellows. The 

 multiplication of shooters on shore and afloat has 

 sensibly tended to lessen the numbers of the Wild 

 Duck ; while drainage on a large scale in many a 

 district the country through, has materially lessened 

 the number of their haunts. Still a very considerable 

 number remain to breed, and a Wild Duck's nest in 

 many parts of the kingdom is no rarity. The nest is 

 made of grass, lined and interwoven with down. It is 

 customarily placed on dry ground on the margin of 

 water, among reeds and bulrushes, or the like ; but 

 may often be found at some distance from water, and 

 in places so unlikely for the purpose as on the open 

 moor, or in a tree top, or in the lofty deserted nest 

 of a crow. The eggs are from nine to twelve in 

 number, sometimes, however, exceeding the latter 

 limit, of a greenish-white colour, and about 2 J inches 

 long by \\ broad. It is long before the young Wild 

 Ducks fly well enough to leave their native reed beds 

 or similar shelter, and, in the state preceding that of 

 actual power to fly away, they are called Flappers. 



