598 



A HISTORY OF 



attentive mother; she frequently leaves her 

 eggs till they spoil, and even seems to forget 

 that she is intrusted with the charge : she is 

 equally regardless of them when excluded ; 

 she leads them to the pond, and thinks she 

 has sufficiently provided for her offspring 

 when she has shown them the water. What- 

 ever advantages may be procured by coming 

 nearer the house, or attending in the yard, 

 she declines them all ; and often lets the ver- 

 min, who haunt the waters, destroy them, ra- 

 ther than bring them to take shelter nearer 

 home. The hen is a nurse of a very opposite 

 character; she broods with the utmost assi- 

 duity, and generally brings forth a young one 

 from every egg committed to her charge ; she 

 does not lead her younglings to the water in- 

 deed, but she watchfully guards them when 

 there, by standing at the brink. Should the 

 rat, or the weasel, attempt to seize them, the 

 hen can give them protection ; she leads them 

 to the house when tired with paddling, and 

 rears up the suppositions brood, without ever 

 suspecting that they belong to another. 



The wild duck di tiers in many respects 

 from the tame; and in them there is still 

 greater variety than among the domestic 

 kinds. Of the tame duck there are not less 

 than ten different sorts ; and of the wild, Bris- 

 son reckons above twenty. The most obvious 

 distinction between wild and tame ducks is 

 in the colour of their feet : those of the tame 

 duck being yellow, those of the wild duck 

 black. The difference between wild ducks 

 among each other, arises as well from their 

 size as the nature of the place they feed in. 

 Sea-ducks, which feed in salt-water, and dive 

 much, have a broad bill, bending upwards, a 

 large hind-toe, and a long blunt tail. Pond- 

 ducks, which feed in plashes, have a straight 

 and narrow bill, a small hind-toe, and a sharp- 

 pointed train. The former are called, by our 

 decoymen, foreign ducks ; the latter are sup- 

 posed to be natives of England. It would be 

 tedious to enter into the minute varieties of 

 such a number of birds; all agreeing in the 

 same general figure, the same habits and mode 

 of living, and differing in little more than their 

 size and the colours of their plumage. In 

 this tribe, we may rank as natives of our own 

 European dominions, the Eider Duck, which 

 is double the size of a common duck, with a 



black bill ; the Velvet Duck, not so large, 

 and with a yellow bill; the Scoter, with a 

 knob at the base of a yellow bill ; the T uited 

 Duck, adorned with a thick crest; the Scaup 

 Duck, less than the common duck, with the 

 bill of a grayish blue colour ; the Golden Eye, 

 with a large white spot at the corners of the 

 mouth, resembling an eye; the Sheldrake, 

 with the bill of a bright red, and swelling into 

 a knob; the Mallard, which is the stock from 

 whence our tame breed has probably been 

 produced ; the Pintail, with the two middle 

 feathers of the tail three inches longer than 

 the rest ; the Pochard, with the head and neck 

 of a bright bay ; the Widgeon, w ith a lead-co- 

 loured bill, and the plumage of the back 

 marked with narrow black and white undu- 

 lated lines, but best known by its whistling 

 sound ; lastly, the Teal, which is the smallest 

 of this kind, with the bill black, the head and 

 upper part of the neck of a bright bay. These 

 are the most common birds of the duck kind 

 among ourselves: but who can describe the 

 amazing variety of this tribe if he extends his 

 view to the different quarters of the world ? 

 The most noted of the foreign tribe are the 

 Muscovy Duck, or, more properly speaking, 

 the Musk Duck, so called from a supposed 

 musky smell, with naked skin round the eyes, 

 and which is a native of Africa; the Brasilian 

 Duck, that is of the size of a goose, all over 

 black except the tips of the wings ; the Ame- 

 rican Wood Duck, with a variety of beauti- 

 ful colourj, and a plume of feathers that falls 

 from the back of the head like a friar's cowl. 

 These, and twenty others, might be added, 

 were increasing the number of names the way 

 to enlarge the sphere of our comprehension. 

 All these live in the manner of our domes- 

 tic ducks, keeping together in flocks in the 

 winter, and flying in pairs in summer, bring- 

 ing up their young by the water-side, and 

 leading them to their food as soon as out of 

 the shell. Their nests are usually built among 

 heath or rushes, not far from the water, and 

 they lay twelve, fourteen, or more eggs, be- 

 fore they sit: yet this is not always their me- 

 thod ; the dangers they continually encoun- 

 ter from their ground situation, sometimes 

 obliges them to change their manner of build- 

 ing; and their awkward nests are often seen 

 exalted on the tops of trees. This must be a 



