SEPTEMBER. 311 



ducklings were hatched^ and grew well through the summer. 

 One night, in October, he heard them making a great tumult, 

 and flying about ; and determined on securing them in the 

 morning : when morning came, however, he could find only- 

 three or four, which he caught, and clipped their wings : the 

 others had got away, but one of them was seen on the river 

 for some days. Before this, they had manifested the native 

 wildness of their disposition, roaming to a distance : he once 

 thought he had lost them, having missed them for some 

 hours ; and suspecting that they might have got into a brook 

 which runs through his farm, and joins the river a short 

 distance, in which direction they had last been seen, he 

 went to a little sand-beach, which, in such case, they must 

 have crossed, and there he found their tracks ; by following 

 which he discovered them in the brook, the old hen terribly 

 alarmed on the bank, and loudly calling them out. 



C — The ducks, in general, appear to be inhabitants of a 

 cold climate. 



F. — By the thickness of their plumage, which is remark- 

 ably soft and compact, they are protected from the effects of 

 the inclemencies to which they are exposed. There is pro- 

 bably no warmer covering in nature than the soft, close, 

 downy plumage of waterfowl, resisting the transmission and 

 consequent abstraction of the animal heat, most effectually. 

 Accordingly, we find them abundant in the high Arctic 

 latitudes, during the short summers ; the species being, in 

 many instances, common to the northern regions of both con- 

 tinents. This fact, the community of species of Arctic birds, 

 seems a strong argument in favour of the existence of a polar 

 continent, or archipelago of islands, which would allow these 

 birds food and rest during their summer excursions across 

 the Pole, suppose from Spitzbergen to Melville Island. The 

 geese, it is true, are capable of long flights ; but the fresh- 

 water ducks, though of swift wing, do not appear to be com- 



