1 6 THE DUCK 



more and more popular among owners of preserved 

 waters. It has been stated that the original strong- 

 hold of this bird was the famous Wicken fen, a few 

 miles south of Ely, the only piece of original fen 

 which draining has left to us. Here a number of 

 white mallard once found sanctuary. Now, however, 

 so the Vicar of Wicken informs me, the white duck 

 no longer make the fen their quarters, though stray 

 birds visit it from neighbouring preserves. Wicken 

 fen was the last home of the beautiful large copper 

 butterfly. 



Food : animal and vegetable in very great 

 variety. 



Here we close the list of duck which demand 

 individual notice. There are altogether some thirty 

 members of the duck family which visit or have been 

 known to visit our islands. Of these, about a third 

 are of such rare occurrence that few sportsmen can 

 reasonably hope to encounter them; of the remain- 

 ing two-thirds, those over and above the eight duck 

 briefly described in the foregoing pages are either 

 wholly uneatable or else of so rank a flavour that no 

 ordinary mortal could bring himself to feed upon 

 them while any palatable viand remained at his dis- 

 posal ; hence one cannot rightly give them notice in 

 a series devoted to the Natural History, the killing 



