THE WIGEON. 393 



within the reach of man. Hence their visits here were few and tran- 

 sitory, and sometimes weeks elapsed without my seeing a single wigeon 

 on the water. Since I have shut the temple of Janus, and proclaimed 

 undisturbed repose to those of the feathered race which come to seek 

 for shelter here, the wigeons are in great abundance ; and, from the 

 time of their arrival to the period of their departure, they may be found 

 here every day, whether in a frosty, a snowy, or an open season. A 

 stranger on observing them would hardly suppose that they are wild 

 fowl; for he will often see nearly one hundred of them congregated 

 with the tame ducks, not sixty yards from the kitchen windows. Pro- 

 tection has restored to them their innate familiarity; and now I am 

 enabled to say something on certain parts of their economy which our 

 ornithological writers seem never to have noticed. 



The wigeon is a much more familiar bird than either the pochard 

 or the teal. While these congregate on the water beyond the reach 

 of man, the wigeon appears to have divested itself of the timidity ob- 

 servable in all other species of wild fowl, and approaches very near 

 to our habitations. A considerable time elapsed before I was enabled 

 to account satisfactorily for the wigeon's remaining here during the 

 night ; a circumstance directly at variance with the habits of its con- 

 geners, which, to a bird, pass the night away from the place where 

 they have been staying during the day. But, upon paying a much 

 closer attention to it than I had formerly been accustomed to do, I 

 observed that it differed from them all, both in the nature of its food 

 and in the time of procuring it. The mallard, the pochard, and the 

 teal obtain nearly the whole of their nourishment during the night. 

 On the contrary, the wigeon procures its food in the day-time, and 

 that food is grass. He who has an opportunity of watching the wigeon, 

 when it is undisturbed, and allowed to follow the bent of its own in- 

 clinations, will find that, while the mallard, the pochard, and the teal 

 are sporting on the water, or reposing on the bank at their ease, it is 

 devouring with avidity that same kind of short grass on which the 

 goose is known to feed. Hence, though many flocks of wigeons ac- 

 company the other water-fowl in their nocturnal wanderings, still num- 

 bers of them pass the whole of the night here ; and this I know to be 

 a fact, by their singular whistling noise, which is heard at all times. 



On January 26th, 1832, for the first time, I satisfied myself, beyond 



