246 SKETCHES OF RUKAL AFFAIRS. 



case, they greatly alarm their foster-parent by plunging 

 into the first water they come near. The hen, not 

 being able to follow them, is in the greatest terror and 

 agitation, and endeavours by all the means in her power 

 to call back her refractory family. 



Ducklings are more independent than chickens, and 

 do not trust so much to their mother's care. When 

 they get a little strength they should be fed with any 

 sweet herbs raw, chopped fine, and mixed with bran 

 and water. Their propensity to insects, slugs, &c., will 

 soon show itself, and even small fish will early become 

 the prey of these voracious feeders. When the duck- 

 lings have been brought up by a hen, some care will be 

 necessary in putting them with the old ducks, lest the 

 latter should ill-treat them through jealousy. Young 

 ducks are liable to many accidents, owing to their 

 awkwardness out of the water. They have not so good 

 a chance of escape from their foes as chickens, because 

 of their heavy waddling gait ; thus they sometimes get 

 trodden on by cattle, and even by man. But their 

 most dangerous enemy is the fox, who often finds them 

 wandering away in search of water, and easily makes 

 them his prey. The raven, and also the carrion crow, 

 have been detected carrying off the young. A natu- 

 ralist, willing to satisfy himself of the partiality of the 

 crow for young aquatic poultry, put an old duck with 

 her ten young ones into a pond, nearly three hundred 

 yards from a high fir-tree, in which a carrion crow had 

 built its nest. It contained five young ones almost 

 fledged. " I took my station on the bridge," he says, 

 " about one hundred yards from the tree. Nine times 

 the parent crows flew to the pond, and brought back a 

 duckling each time to their young. I saved a tenth 

 victim by timely interference. When a young brood 

 is attacked by an enemy, the old duck does nothing to 

 defend it. In lieu of putting herself between it and 

 danger, as the dunghill fowl would do, she opens her 

 niouth, and darts obliquely through the water, beating 



