EIDER DUCK. 95 



was nothing less than a duckish thanksgiving for 

 deliverance. 



The social and conversing qualities of ducks, in- 

 deed, receive a degree of countenance from the re- 

 lations of ornithologists. The habitudes of the 

 EIDER ducks, so valuable for their down, which 

 frequent the lakes of northern countries, are thus 

 described ; the ducks flying in the air, are lured 

 down from the heights by the loud voice of the 

 mallard below, which nature seems to have fur- 

 nished with powerful organs for vociferation. To 

 this call all stragglers resort, and in a short time, a 

 lake, before naked, is completely black with water- 

 fowl. There they huddle together, extremely busy 

 and very loud. Upon what business they are thus 

 incessantly employed all day, is not easy to guess by 

 us, who understand not their language. There 

 appears no food for them in the midst of the lake, 

 where they thus sit and cabal, nor does any action 

 of theirs indicate a search of food : nor can court- 

 ship be the object, for which the season has not 

 arrived ; yet not one of them seems a moment at 

 rest. Now they pursue each other; now rise up 

 screaming, in a body, then down again ; the whole 

 appearing one strange scene of bustle, conducted 

 with the utmost regularity, and after all with nothing 

 at all to do. 



It is a curious illustration of the de gustibus non 

 est disputandum, that the ancients considered the 

 swan as a high delicacy, and abstained from the 

 flesh of the goose as impure and indigestible ; whilst 

 the moderns reject the flesh of the swan, and eat 



