166 THE WILD DUCK. 



The nest is generally constructed of dry grass, sedge, 

 or dead leaves, sometimes of moss. To this the bird, 

 as soon as she commences to set, adds down from her 

 own breast till at last the nest becomes thickly lined 

 with feathers and down. Mr. Lubbock, writing fifty 

 years ago, states that in some years from 1,200 to 

 1,300 fowl were bred at Ranworth, which is excep- 

 tionally situated, the rising ground, covered with wood 

 and thicket round the Broad, forming a great attrac- 

 tion for ducks ; but taking the Broad district as a 

 whole, I do not think there are at present so many ducks 

 bred there as one would be led to expect ; they seem to 

 prefer less extensive waters and drier ground than is 

 generally to be found in the marshes contiguous to the 

 Broads. One curious circumstance in connection with 

 the nesting of the wild duck is the frequency of the 

 occurrence of pheasants' or partridges' eggs in their 

 nests ; many such instances have come under my ob- 

 servation, and I have frequently heard of others. The 

 partridge occasionally makes use of the comfortable nest 

 of the duck as a receptacle for its eggs, but not, [ 

 believe, so frequently as the pheasant. When the proud 

 mother marshals her young ones, to conduct them to the 

 water, great must be her surprise at the ugly ducklings 

 which form part of her brood. 



It not unfrequently happens that ducks depart from 

 their usual habit of nesting on the ground, and resort 

 to trees for that purpose. Hunt (" British Ornithology," 

 ii., p. 322) mentions that a huntsman to the then Mr. T. 

 W. Coke, in the year 1782, killed a duck from her nest in 

 a lofty Scotch fir in Holkham Park, much to his surprise, 

 fully expecting to have killed a hawk. Mr. Stevenson, 

 in his journal, mentions a similar case : " Near Faken- 

 ham, in 1850, three ducks were found in a plantation 

 by the gamekeeper breeding in tall trees about twenty 

 feet from the ground, and using the deserted nests of 

 woodpigeons for that purpose ; one had laid twelve, one 

 seven, and one five eggs." This, if my memory serves 

 me correctly, occurred at Raynham; and, at the same 

 place, I was shown, five and twenty years ago, the nest 

 of a wild duck in some ivy on the top of a wall, near the 

 moat at Raynham Hall. Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., tells 



