200 THE MALLARD. 



" Ocior cervis, et agente nimbos 

 Ocior Euro." 



One morning he was observed to pursue a teal, 

 which only just escaped destruction by alighting on 

 a pond, within a few yards of the place where some 

 labourers were at work. 



I should think that the old birds remain in pairs 

 through the entire year ; and that the young ones, 

 which had been hatched in the preceding spring, 

 choose their mates long before they depart for the 

 arctic regions in the following year. I have a fa- 

 vourite hollow oak tree on a steep hill, into which I 

 can retire to watch the movements of the pretty 

 visitors. From this I can often see a male and female 

 on the water beneath me, nodding and bowing to 

 each other with as much ceremony as though they 

 were swimming a minuet, if I may use the expres- 

 sion. Hence I conclude that there is mutual love 

 in the exhibition, and that a union is formed. 



When these large flocks of wild fowl take their 

 departure in spring for the distant regions of the 

 north, about a dozen pairs of mallards remain here 

 to breed. Sometimes you may find a solitary nest 

 of these birds near the water's edge, or a few yards 

 from it, on a sloping bank thickly clothed with 

 underwood; but, in general, they seem to prefer 

 the recesses of a distant wood for the purposes of 

 their incubation ; though we have had an instance 

 of one building its nest in a tree, and of another 

 which hatched its young on an old ruin. Last year 

 a domesticated wild duck had a brood of ten young 

 ones in the month of May ; and on the 27th day of 



