240 THE SHELDUCK AND SURFACE-FEEDING DUCKS 



Of its courting habits we have but few records, and these we 

 owe for the most part to the enthusiasm of Mr. J. G. Millais. The 

 display of the drake, he tells us, differs somewhat from that of other 

 surface feeders. Five or six drakes will persistently swim round a 

 female and persecute her with their attentions. Every male raises 

 his crest and stretches out his neck close over the water, meanwhile 

 erecting his beautiful elongated inner scapulars as if to display them 

 to the best advantage ; and at the same time the wrist is thrust 

 downwards, causing the primaries to rise in the air. During all this 

 time they keep up a babble of loud " whee-ous," for the wigeon is by 

 far the noisiest of the ducks in his courtship. Only occasionally do 

 the males fight, and in such encounters each tries to seize the other 

 by the back of the neck, and to get his adversary underneath him, 

 when he may be punished by a sound drubbing with the wings as well 

 as severe bites on the head and neck. As a rule such contests are 

 fought only by old males, but occasionally, at any rate, like the 

 shoveler, immature birds enter the arena, and it is certain that such 

 occasionally breed. 



So soon as the female begins to sit, the male, Mr. Millais tells us, 

 betakes himself off, to undergo, in seclusion, the moult which for a 

 season deprives him of his fine feathers and leaves him in the more 

 sombre garb of his ancestors. These weeks of humiliation he spends 

 in mutual companionship with all the other males in the neighbour- 

 hood in like case. But, according to Naumann, the male attends the 

 female while sitting till incubation is about half over, roosting by 

 day near the nest, and accompanying her each evening to the feeding 

 ground. But at last he leaves her to fend for herself, while he retires 

 to moult. 



