SANCTUARIES FOR WILD BIRDS 235 



quick as that of human beings, they adapt their 

 behaviour to the treatment which their intelligence 

 warns them to expect. At Monymusk, in Aberdeen- 

 shire, the home of Sir Francis Grant, numbers of 

 wild ducks used to take sanctuary on a pond adjoin- 

 ing the stables. The place was described by a writer 

 as ' a large duck-pond adjoining the stable square ; 

 the ducks are not tame wild ducks, but bond-fide 

 wild ducks, wild wherever else they go, but tame 

 the moment they settle on the pond. They swim 

 up to be fed within a few feet of anyone, evincing 

 no fear. Outside the precincts of their pond they 

 are as wild as the wildest duck can possibly be/ Sir 

 Francis Grant, in answer to a question addressed 

 to him by Sir R. Payne-Gallwey, wrote of this 

 wonderful c duckery ' ' Every word in the account 

 is perfectly true ; a gentleman is staying with me 

 to-day who never saw the ducks in the stable square 

 before. He saw about one hundred and fifty, and 

 the coachman called them and fed them with oats. 

 Last Sunday I fed them, and they came within the 

 length of my walking-stick/ 



The park at Walton Hall, which Charles 

 Waterton inclosed and protected, only covered two 

 hundred and sixty acres ; the lake was large in pro- 

 portion to the size of the park, containing twenty- 

 four acres of water. But the modest limits of this 



