102 FIELD NOTES FOR THE YEAR. 



perfect beauty of feather, but very few of them have entirely 

 put off their sober brown. The mallard has for some time 

 been in high beauty, and is most valuable to the dresser of 

 salmon-flies. 



I see the widgeon come regularly now, at the ebb of the 

 tide, to feed on the grassy banks which are left uncovered by 

 the receding of the water. They first feed as they swim 

 round the edges of the small islands and banks ; but when 

 the tide begins to recede, the birds come out on the banks 

 and graze like geese. 



This season the wild ducks have found out a new kind of 

 food the remains of the diseased potatoes which have been 

 left in the fields. My attention was first called to their 

 feeding on them by observing that my domesticated wild 

 ducks had managed to dig well into a heap of half-rotten 

 potatoes, which had been put partly under ground, and then 

 covered over with a good thickness of earth, as being unfit 

 for pigs or any other animal. However, the wild ducks had 

 scented them out, arid although well supplied with food, they 

 had dug into the heap in all directions, feeding greedily on 

 the rotten potatoes ; in fact, leaving their corn for them. I 

 then found that the wild ducks from the bay flew every 

 evening to the potatoe-tields to feed on the roots which had 

 been left ; and so fond were they of them, that I often saw 

 the ducks rise from the fields in the middle of the day in 

 the evening it was always a sure place to get a brace or two. 

 The mallard is very omnivorous at this season : in the crop 

 of one killed were oats, small seed, shrimps, and potatoes, all 

 the produce of his reseaches during the preceding night. 



We find the remains of the little auk everywhere ; some I 

 have seen amongst the furze bushes, &c., at the distance of 

 fully four miles from the sea. They appeared to have been 

 driven there by the wind, and to have died entangled in such 

 unaccustomed ground. The remains which I found did not 

 appear to have been brought by crows, or any animal of 

 prey. 



During the present severe frost, I am much amused with 

 the long-tail ducks, who at every flow of the tide swim, into 

 the bay, and often some way up the river, uttering their 

 most musical and singular cry, which at a distance resembles 

 the bugle-like note of the wild swan more than anything else. 



As long as there is no collection of floating ice, the bay is 

 very full of birds, and the shores are enlivened with the 



