WATER BIRDS. 219 



streams ; yet at such seasons they often suffer severely 

 from want, and become quite emaciated if the frost is of 

 long continuance, losing much of their usual shyness 

 and resorting to the fields. 



A site for her nest is by no means invariably selected 

 by the wild duck in the vicinity of water. The long 

 heath on our open forest is constantly chosen for that 

 purpose, and numberless are the nests I have known 

 where the nearest stream has been at least a mile dis- 

 tant. How the young, when first hatched, were con- 

 veyed to the water, long surprised me ; that it is done 

 as soon as they break the shell I have no doubt, for 

 though I have often found the eggs before hatching, and 

 the empty shells after, I never met with the young ones. 

 The extraordinary fact that they occasionally placed 

 their nests in trees convinced me that the parent birds 

 must in such cases carry their young at least to the 

 ground ; and I do not now doubt that this is their com- 

 mon practice where the distance to water is too great for 

 the young ones to travel on foot. 



I knew a nest which was placed in an evergreen in 

 the pleasure grounds at Thoresby, and from which the 

 young were hatched and brought safely off. Another 

 instance came under my notice in 1856, in which the 

 nest was constructed in a large beech tree, in an avenue 

 in the same grounds, at the height of forty feet from the 

 ground, and from this great elevation the young ones 

 were safely conveyed to water. 



The late Mr. Mansell of Thoresby related to me the 

 following instance of the parent bird actually conveying 

 her young to water, which he himself witnessed. He 

 was passing one morning at daybreak, in the early part 

 of May, under a large ash tree, which was thickly 



