72 THE -BIRDS OF RAINHAM. 



lately enclosed a wide extent of salt marsh, convert- 

 ing it by means of embankments into a pasture 

 marsh for sheep, and from philanthropic motives has 

 succeeded in establishing a pond in the centre for the 

 preservation of Wild Duck ; they separate and pair 

 in March, are seen to frequent most of the adjacent 

 marshes where they breed. 



A note from me was published in the Zoologist, 

 and copied into many local and other newspapers, as 

 follows : 



"A mowing machine was set to work, June, 1891, 

 round the outside of a field of lucerne bordering our 

 marsh, diminishing the circle each time round the 

 field, leaving about two acres in the centre. A Wild 

 Duck was seen by the shepherd to fly from the piece 

 of lucerne that was left with something in her beak, 

 and happening to fly near him, she dropped a three 

 parts incubated egg. She was observed by the 

 shepherd and also by the sheep-shearer carrying 

 another egg in her beak, this time over the marsh 

 wall towards the saltings, and again she was seen, the 

 third time, carrying an egg in her beak in the same 

 direction. On the mowing machine going to work 

 the next day, and finishing the field by mowing the 

 last piece of lucerne, the Wild Duck's nest was dis- 

 covered from which the eggs had been removed." 



A Wild Duck has been met with transporting her 

 newly-hatched brood upon her back across the Med- 

 way. 



