242 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



not prompted nor suggested Iby the method and 

 rule mider which she was brought to light — pre- 

 paring itj too, with three or four days purposely 

 set apart for the labour, and then depositing her 

 eggs in a nest artificially raised for their reception 

 and protection. 



While I write these lines, in the month of May, 

 1872, this wild duck, thus possessed of ^^ reason," 

 — not only mere instinct, but ^^ reason" to a sjDCcific 

 purpose, — is sitting on her nest in the usual spot, 

 and for the third or fourth year she will again 

 breed up her young under a coop. Should she, 

 when mingling in the ^^ foreign flights" next 

 winter, again escape the gun, as I hojie she will, 

 she is as sure to nest in the same place as winter 

 is to come again. Out of more than thirty nests 

 which I knew of in the spring before this, there 

 are only two of the previous sites unoccupied 

 now, — all the rest have their previous tenants; 

 and when it is considered that in one shooting- 

 day the bag was one Imndred and seventeen 

 head, it seems extraordinary that the wild fowl 

 rendered indigenous to the place should have 

 escaped to that extent. 



Again, in the many monkeys that have come 



