488 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



very careful to hide the eggs with leaves and grass 

 whenever she leaves the nest, and so well does she 

 do this that her nest may easily be passed by without 

 being seen, even when placed in a tolerably open 

 situation. 



The principal food of the Wild Duck is grain, 

 seeds, worms, slugs, insects and small fish : amongst 

 the vegetable part of its food it seems to prefer 

 small water crowfoot, spring-water starwort, and the 

 roots and stems of the common hornwort.* The 

 stomach has also been found to contain sand, shells, 

 sea-weed and potatoes some of the latter still 

 whole, and one of them a little more than an inch 

 in diameter, t These birds seek for food mostly at 

 night, setting out on the search late in the evening, 

 and returning in the morning. My tame ones prac- 

 tice this habit with great regularity : setting off 

 always a little before sunset, and spreading out 

 through the grass-fields, they make a walking expe- 

 dition, sometimes of considerable extent : when thus 

 out they are very wild, and will not allow any one to 

 approach within a hundred yards of them, all rising 

 on the slightest alarm and returning to the pond, 

 which is their usual home : when once there they 

 are as tame as ever.. In a wild state they set off on 

 this expedition with about the same regularity, but 



* ' Zoologist ' for 1865, p. 9537. 

 f Id., 1806 (Second Series), p. 291. 



