OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 31 1 



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, anas 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. 



HEN PARTRIDGE. 



A hen partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along 

 shivering with her wings and crying out as if wounded and 

 unable to get from us. While the dam acted this distress, 

 the boy who attended me saw her brood, that was small 

 and unable to fly, run for shelter into an old fox-earth 

 under the bank. So wonderful a power is instinct. — » 

 White. 



