THE NEST 243 



The first duty of the mated pair is to choose a 

 place for the nest. It is situated for, being of 

 such scanty materials, it can hardly be said to be 

 built sometimes, at the bottom of a thick double 

 hedge, sometimes, in the deep heather, or in a tuft 

 of long rushes, in a meadow or a marsh, dry itself, 

 like Gideon's fleece, where all around is moist ; some- 

 times, on the stump of a tree that hangs over a 

 stream, or in the middle of a withy-bed or fir planta- 

 tion. The female generally lays from eight to twelve 

 light brown eggs, though the first nest I ever found 

 how well I remember it, as a boy! beneath a 

 box-bush, in Lord Portman's " Cliff" at Blandford, 

 contained the astonishing number of nineteen. I 

 thought, at first, that two ducks must have laid 

 their eggs in a single nest, as pheasants or par- 

 tridges will sometimes do, for it was, obviously, 

 impossible that one old bird should Qover the 

 whole nineteen. One husband, I thought, might 

 have taken two wives ; for I did not know then 

 what I know now, that, while the plebeian tame 

 duck is a polygamist, with a more than Muslim 

 laxity of morals, his patrician original is a strict 

 and staunch monogamist. But I watched, till I 

 was convinced that no second bird had part or 

 parcel in the matter. 



