

THE BIRD-BERGS OF LAPLAND. 47 



the duck, ordinarily so wild and shy, has become a domestic bird 

 during the breeding season. Every morning towards the end of 

 the brooding-time he inspects the island in order to help the mothers 

 and to gather in a second harvest of down. On his back hangs a 

 hamper, and on one arm a wide hand-basket. Going from nest to 

 nest he lifts each duck, and looks to see whether the young are 

 hatched and are sufficiently dry. If this be the case, he packs the 

 whole waddling company in his hand-basket, and with adroit grasp 

 divests the nest of its downy lining, which he throws into his 

 hamper, and proceeds to another nest. Trustfully the duck waddles 

 after him or rather after her piping offspring, and a second, third, 

 tenth nest is thus emptied, in fact the work goes on as long as 

 the basket will accommodate more nestlings, and one mother after 

 another joins the procession, exchanging opinions with her com- 

 panions in suffering on the way. Arrived at the sea, the man turns 

 the basket upside down and simply shakes the whole crowd of 

 ducklings into the water. Immediately all the ducks throw them- 

 selves after their piping young ones; coaxing, calling, displaying all 

 manner of maternal tenderness, they swim about among the flock, 

 each trying to collect as many ducklings as possible behind herself. 

 With obvious pride one swims about with a long train behind her, 

 but soon a second, less favoured, crosses the procession and seeks 

 to detach as many of the ducklings as she can, and again a third 

 endeavours to divert a few in her own favour. So all the mothers 

 swim about, quacking and calling, cackling and coaxing, till at length 

 each one has behind her a troop of young ones, whether her own 

 or another's who can tell? The duck in question certainly does not 

 know, but her mother-love does not suffer on that account they 

 are in any case ducklings who are swimming behind her! 



In every case the flock thus collected follows the mother or 

 foster-mother faithfully even in the first hours of free life. The 

 mother leads them to places where edible mussels cover the rocks 

 up to low-water mark, gathers as many as she arid her family 

 require, breaks the shells of the smallest and lays the contents 

 before her brood. On the first day of their lives the ducklings are 

 able to swim and dive as well as their parents, and they even excel 



