SLEEPING ON THE WATER. 241 



afternoon in a cave situated at the foot of a 

 scaur frequented by these birds, and when it got 

 fairly dark he took off his boots and crept 

 stealthily along until he came to the part directly 

 beneath where they usually roosted. In this way 

 he secured one now and again by an overhead 

 shot as the birds, which he alarmed by making an 

 intentional noise, flew away outlined against the 

 sky. His best efforts were, however, often frus- 

 trated by the accidental rattle of a stone beneath 

 his feet, startling the Ravens from their slumbers 

 long before he got within gunshot. 



Wild Ducks, being night feeders, generally sleep 

 between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning on 

 a bank or in the water of some secluded pond, 

 lake, or broad. It is said that the way a duck 

 sleeps on a body of water without being drifted 

 ashore in breezy weather is by keeping one foot 

 tucked up and unconsciously paddling with the 

 other. This has the effect of making the bird 

 describe small circles, but I cannot understand 

 why it does not lose ground at the completion 

 of each, in the same way that a soaring bird does 

 in the air by drifting slowly to leeward. 



I do not know whether the sexes of such wild 

 birds as are quite outside the influence of game- 

 preserving balance each other with any degree of 

 exactitude of numbers in all species, but I am 

 assured by several Sparrow- catchers that they 

 generally take more males than females, and this 

 assertion is certainly borne out by the bags of two 

 men whom I accompanied on their visits to ricks, 

 evergreens, and hedges on three separate occasions. 

 On the first night they caught twenty -seven birds, 

 consisting of seventeen males and ten females ; on 

 the second, six, comprising four males and 'two 

 Q 



