290 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



together in the midst of large fields, far removed from hedges 

 and coppices, which they love to haunt in the day, and where, 

 at that season, they can skulk more secure from the ravages 

 of rapacious birds. 



As to ducks and geese, their awkward, splay, web feet 

 forbid them to settle on trees ; they therefore, in the hours of 

 darkness and danger, betake themselves to their own element, 

 the water, where, amidst large lakes and pools, like ships 

 riding at anchor, they float the whole night long in peace and 

 security.* 



* Guinea fowls not only roost on high, but in hard weather resort, even 

 in the day time, to tlie very tops of the highest trees. 



Last winter, when the ground was covered with snow, I discovered all 

 ray guinea fowls, in the middle of the day, sitting on the highest boughs 

 of some very tall elms, chattering and making a great clamour : I ordered 

 them to be driven down, lest they should be frozen to death in so elevated 

 a situation ; but this was not effected without much difficulty, they being 

 very unwilling to quit their lofty abode, notwithstanding one of them had 

 its feet so much frozen, that we were obliged to kill it. I know not how 

 to account for this, unless it was occasioned by their aversion to the snow 

 on the ground, they being birds that come originally from a hot climate. 



Notwithstanding the awkward, splay, web feet, as Mr White calls them, 

 of the duck genus, some of the foreign species have the power of settling 

 on the boughs of trees, apparently with great ease ; an instance of which 

 I have seen in the Earl of Ashburnham's menagerie, where the summer 

 duck (anus sponsa} flew up and settled on the branch of an oak tree, in 

 my presence ; but whether any of them roost on trees in the night, we 

 are not informed by any author that I am acquainted with. I suppose 

 not ; but that, like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, where 

 the birds of this genus are not always perfectly secure, as will appear from 

 the following circumstance, which happened in this neighbourhood a few 

 years since, as I was credibly informed : A female fox was found in the 

 morning, drowned in the same pond in which were several geese, and it 

 Was supposed, that, in the night, the fox swam into the pond to devour 

 the geese, but was attacked by the gander, which, being most powerful in 

 its own element, buffeted the fox with its wings about the head, till it was 

 drowned. MARKWICK. 



In Aberdeenshire, in 1821, thirty geese deserted the pond where they 

 were bred, and were never more heard of. A gentleman saw them in 

 their flight eastward towards the sea, the wind blowing a gale from the 

 north-west. 



A gentleman near Huddersfield had a flock of geese, which were 

 fed on high ground not visible from his house : they were brought 

 home at night ; and very frequently, on seeing the house from the top 

 of the hill, they would take wing, and fly homewards, making a circuit 

 of about a mile. On one occasion, they were nearly alighting at a 

 pond of water at the next farm-house, similai to one near their home ; 

 they soon, however, discovered their mistake, and raised themselves in the 



