78 BIEDS 



liberately proceeded to attract my attention. I rescued 

 the hen, and placing her bedraggled self on the ground, 

 watched the pair hasten off the cock progressing on his 

 toes and giving himself the most absurd airs, and quite 

 manifestly observing that if there were gratitude at all 

 in hendom, it was his due for all time! I had never 

 before credited these birds with so much brain power ; 

 and I admit that I should feel sceptical had I not wit- 

 nessed the facts. 



May 6, 1905. 



THE DELUSION OF A DUCK 



We were on our summer holiday and were playing 

 stump-cricket in the stone-walled lane that led to our 

 farmhouse : our bat a stick, our wicket a narrow packing- 

 case, our ball the lawn tennis variety. I was a wicket- 

 keeper, and a ball slipped past me into the scrub beneath 

 a bramble-bush. I turned, just in time to detect the end 

 of some movement which puzzled me. Presently I saw 

 two very bright e} 7 es gleaming in the shadow, and identi- 

 fied a sitting duck who needed no instruction in colour- 

 protection, and our ball was peeping out from under her 

 wing. Now the bird furiously resisted its removal, so we 

 selected another for our game ; but next time the ball 

 entered the scrub I turned in time to see the duck leap 

 from her nest, bill the ball into it, and resume her brood- 

 ing. Again, furious resistance to every attempt to abduct 

 the latest little stranger. After the game was over I 

 pitched into the bush a ball of about six inches diameter ; 

 in a moment she had it in her nest and was trying to sit 

 on it. Alas ! she could not keep her balance on such an 

 object, so she gave it the best she could, a motherly wing. 

 Then came the farmer, delighted that we had found his 

 " best layer " ; so she was turned off in disgrace off a 

 nest, that is, containing two eggs and three balls. But 



