142 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



point. The young seem to be able to smell salt 

 water, and will cover miles of land to gain it. If, 

 however, the distance prove impracticable, they will 

 surely leave in autumn when the migratory impulse 

 is strong upon them. This instinct is particularly 

 marked in all sea-fowl, and wild swans, geese and 

 ducks call loudly to their farm cousins as they pass 

 over. There is a great wildness about the clangour 

 and cries of migratory fowl, coming as it does far 

 up in the wintry sky. Reverting to the breeding of 

 the sheldrake, the parents have been observed con- 

 veying the newly-hatched young to the sea on their 

 backs when the nest has been far inland. In Holland 

 recesses are cut in the dunes and sand-hills so as to 

 encourage the birds to breed, and each morning the 

 nests are visited and the eggs collected. Ordinarily 

 not more than a dozen eggs are laid, but under this 

 system as many as thirty are produced by a single 

 duck. After the i8th of June the persecution ceases, 

 and the birds are allowed to hatch in peace. Most 

 of the nests are lined with fine down little inferior 

 in quality to that of the eiders, this too becoming 

 a commercial commodity. 



Being driven from their bleak northern haunts 

 by the ice, widgeon appear in immense flocks in 

 winter, and are by far the commonest of the 

 migratory ducks. They first begin to arrive about 

 October, and continue coming until the end of the 



