424 HISTORY OF 



their flesh is often lean, and still oftener fishy ; 

 which flavour it has probably contracted in the 

 journey, as their food in the lakes of Lapland, 

 from whence they descend, is generally of the 

 insect kind. 



As soon as Ihey arrive among us, they are 

 usually seen flying in flocks to make a survey of 

 those lakes where they intend to take up their 

 residence for the winter. In the choice of these 

 they have two objects in view to be near their 

 food, and yet remote from interruption. Their 

 chief aim is to choose some lake in the neighbour- 

 hood of a marsh, where there is at the same time 

 a cover of woods, and where insects are found in 

 greatest abundance. Lakes, therefore, with a 

 marsh on one side, and a wood on the other, are 

 seldom without vast quantities of wild fowl ; and 

 where a couple are seen at any time, that is a suf- 

 ficient inducement to bring hundreds of others. 

 The ducks flying in the air are often lured down 

 from their heights by the loud voice of the mal- 

 lard from below. Nature seems to have furnished 

 this bird with very particular faculties for calling. 

 The windpipe, where it begins to enter the lungs, 

 opens into a kind of bony cavity, where the sound 

 is reflected as in a musical instrument, and is 

 heard a great way off. To this call all the strag- 

 glers resort ; and in a week or a fortnight's time 

 a lake that before was quite naked is black with 

 water fowl, that have left their Lapland retreats 

 to keep company with our ducks who never stir- 

 red from home. 



