126 Poachers and Poaching. 



carried down to the tide. The young seem to 

 be able to smell salt water, and will cover 

 miles to gain it. An interesting fact anent 

 another of our British ducks centres about the 

 golden-eye, an exquisite study in black and 

 white, the back of the neck and head being 

 burnished with violet and green. A trait which 

 the golden-eye has is its almost invariable habit 

 of nesting in holes in trees remarkable in the 

 case of a duck so that the Laps place darkened 

 boxes by the sides of rivers and lakes for the 

 ducks to lay in. Often as many as a dozen eggs 

 are found, and the nests are lined with the soft 

 down of the birds. The golden-eye has been 

 seen to transport its young to the water from a 

 considerable altitude. While botanising by the 

 side of a lake, where these beautiful birds breed 

 in great numbers, a Lap clergyman observed one 

 of them drop into the water, and at the same 

 time an infant duck appeared. After watching 

 awhile and seeing the old bird fly to and from 

 the nest several times, he made out that the 

 young bird was held under the bill, but supported 

 by the neck of the parent. 



All the British woodpeckers bear out the 

 theory already stated. They lay glossy white 

 eggs, and their nests, (if the touchwood upon 

 which their eggs are deposited can be so called,) 

 are always built in holes in growing wood or 

 decayed timber. The stock-dove, one of our 



