202 BIRDS' NESTS. 



one by one, by the help of a ladder. Whether 

 the silly mother had formed any plan in her 

 own head for getting down her chickens, never 

 appeared. Perhaps it was her first brood, and 

 she did not know that they would not be able 

 to fly as soon as they were hatched, but thought 

 that as she was able to fly up, they would be 

 able to fly down to her, much the easier opera- 

 tion of the two. One of the ducks could find 

 no place, either in the poultry-yard, garden, 

 meadow, or wood, to suit her taste, but had 

 scrambled through a thick hedge, and made 

 her nest in a ditch, by the side of the road, 

 over which carts, horses, and people, passed 

 at all hours of the day. She always covered 

 her eggs with dry leaves and rubbish whenever 

 she left it, and so made it very difficult to find 

 them; but it was clear that she must have 

 always chosen some time for doing so when 

 nobody was passing, or she would certainly 

 have been observed. The gardener found her 

 out before she had begun to sit, and took the 



