180 THE WIGEON. 
I am enabled to say something on certain parts of 
their economy, which our ornithological writers 
seem never to have noticed. 
The wigeon is a much more familiar bird than 
either the pochard or the teal. While these con- 
gregate on the water, beyond the reach of man, the 
wigeon appears to have divested itself of the timid- 
ity observable in all other species of wild fowl, and 
approaches very near to our habitations. A consi- 
derable time elapsed before I was enabled to account 
satisfactorily for the wigeon’s remaining here during 
the night ; a circumstance directly at variance with 
the habits of its congeners, which, to a bird, pass 
the night away from the place where they have 
been staying during the day. But, upon paying 
a much closer attention to it than I had formerly 
been accustomed to do, I observed that it differed 
from them all, both in the nature of its food, and in 
the time of procuring it. The mallard, the pochard, 
and the teal obtain nearly the whole of their nourish- 
ment during the night. On the contrary, the wigeon 
procures its food in the day time, and that food is 
grass. He who has an opportunity of watching the 
wigeon when it is undisturbed, and allowed to follow 
the bent of its own inclinations, will find that, while 
the mallard, the pochard, and the teal are sporting 
on the water, or reposing on the bank at their ease, 
it is devouring with avidity that same kind of short 
grass, on which the goose is known to feed. Hence, 
though many flocks of wigeons accompany the other 
water-fowl in their nocturnal wanderings, still num- 
bers of them pass the whole of the night here; and 
