180 THE WIGEON. 



I am enabled to say something on certain parts of 

 their economy, which our ornithological writers 

 seem never to have noticed. 



The wigeon is a much more familiar bird than 

 either the pochard or the teal. While these con- 

 gregate on the water, beyond the reach of man, the 

 wigeon appears to have divested itself of the timid- 

 ity observable in all other species of wild fowl, and 

 approaches very near to our habitations. A consi- 

 derable time elapsed before I was enabled to account 

 satisfactorily for the wigeon's remaining here during 

 the night ; a circumstance directly at variance with 

 the habits of its congeners, which, to a bird, pass 

 the night away from the place where they have 

 been staying during the day. But, upon paying 

 a much closer attention to it than I had formerly 

 been accustomed to do, I observed that it differed 

 from them all, both in the nature of its food, and in 

 the time of procuring it. The mallard, the pochard, 

 and the teal obtain nearly the whole of their nourish- 

 ment during the night. On the contrary, the wigeon 

 procures its food in the day time, and that food is 

 grass. He who has an opportunity of watching the 

 wigeon when it is undisturbed, and allowed to follow 

 the bent of its own inclinations, will find that, while 

 the mallard, the pochard, and the teal are sporting 

 on the water, or reposing on the bank at their ease, 

 it is devouring with avidity that same kind of short 

 grass, on which the goose is known to feed. Hence, 

 though many flocks of wigeons accompany the other 

 water-fowl in their nocturnal wanderings, still num- 

 bers of them pass the whole of the night here ; and 



