THE SHOVELLER DUCK 275 



of these tussocks, within a radius of not more than 

 twenty yards, are no less than three wild ducks' 

 nests, one still tenanted by the anxious mother, 

 while the other two have already sent their broods 

 into the world. One of them contains two addled 

 eggs, which the keeper has carefully poisoned -an 

 act which, surely, is always and everywhere to be 

 condemned in the hope of killing a carrion crow, 

 a bird of prey for which he has no bowels of 

 compassion. Close by, too, a beautiful shoveller 

 duck is sitting on her whitish eggs, the first 

 specimen of the nest and eggs which I have ever 

 been privileged to see. She tumbles about, as if 

 badly shot, as she half flies, half limps away. She 

 has been sitting on eleven eggs, ten of them her own, 

 and one, that of a pheasant ! It is a peculiarity of 

 the pheasant as of some other semi-domesticated 

 birds, that, like the cuckoo, she will often drop 

 her egg into the nest of another bird ; but, unlike 

 the cuckoo, the nest she selects or happens to meet 

 with is, sometimes, not that which is best suited 

 for the wants of her offspring. Poor little pheasant ! 

 It will not have many hours of life, nor much 

 ground to run over during them, for, as its 

 foster brothers slip off the tussock into the water 

 which surrounds it, it will be bound to follow 



