294 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



full eight miles and substituted for the eggs of a sitting 

 hen, and at the expiration of a fortnight had ten wild 

 ducks. The tree grew on a high bank, so that the 

 young birds would have had to descend ten feet into 

 the water ! " The Common Teal ( Querquedula Creccd) 

 is very abundant in the winter, and a few pairs breed 

 among the birches of West Heath, where we have 

 more than once seen its cosy nest full of eggs. The 

 Widgeon (Mareca Penelope), the Tufted Duck (Fuligula 

 cristata\ and the Red-headed Pochard (Aythya Ferind) 

 are sometimes numerous at the ponds, and the beautiful 

 Merganser (Merganser Castor) has been occasionally 

 shot there. . 



The pretty little Dabchick (Syllbeocyclus Europozus) 

 is one of our well-known residents, more numerous at 

 the Hurst Mill Pond than at either of the others, and 

 sometimes even seen and heard at the Engine and 

 South-Garden Ponds. This bird is a wonderful diver, 

 flies under the water almost as easily as over it, and 

 constructs a very remarkable nest. Our local observer 

 says : " My success with the Little Grebe was more 

 complete, and of this I must give you some details. 

 It was on a very cold evening early in May that I 

 embarked in a small craft on one of our neighbouring 

 Mill Ponds a long narrow winding sheet of water, 

 fringed here and there with flags and sedge, and 

 having on each side a high steep bank covered with 

 copsewood down to the water's edge. As I knew that 

 the dabchick frequented this charmingly secluded 

 spot, the discovery of its nest was my especial object, 

 and I was not disappointed ; I found three before I 

 landed again. When I say, with reference to the 

 first, that I had never to my knowledge seen one 

 before, I purposely abstain from adding one word in 

 extenuation of the surprise with which I found that a 

 shapeless raft of dead flags, the very ' counterfeit pre- 

 sentment ' of an unstudied entanglement of floating 

 weeds, was the unassuming structure I was in search 



