292 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



brook coils round the base of a big ' breck," 

 dividing that from a morass. On the ' breck" 

 side, a widish strip of tawny sedges, with here and 

 there bunches of coarse grass and uninviting clusters 

 of nettles, adorn the lowly bank of the river. 

 Walking about six paces apart, a friend and 

 myself trod out every foot of this aquatic jungle, 

 till at last there only required a 60 ft. by 20 ft. 

 strip to finish the plot entirely. Until then we 

 had nothing to our credit, not even a common 

 wild-duck's nest, when suddenly a duck, and a 

 Gad wall, too, rose from her nest, only four or 

 five paces ahead. She was easily recognised by 

 her conspicuous white speculum ; though, but for 

 that glaring sign fully displayed as she flies directh 

 from us, she savours somewhat of a delicately 

 moulded common wild-duck. Indeed, the upper 

 plumage of the two species, w r hen either sort is 

 seen as now, is not so strikingly dissimilar, certainly 

 the novice might blunder. With low, but not very 

 cumbrous flight, our 'find" made for a bed 

 of tall reeds fringing the stream, where she 

 alighted with a scarcely perceptible splash. A little 

 later, however, she flew clean aw r ay. 



This nest, more exposed than usual, was only 

 a few yards from the river's brink, and reposed 

 amongst a medley of sedgy grass, nettles, and 

 ground-ivy. It was a substantial structure of flat 

 rinds of sedge and a little dried grass, finished off 

 with a fairly liberal lining of down, chiefly felted 



