Wild Duck 479 



any fowl commonly called moulted ducks in any of the fens 

 before Midsummer-day yearly.'* 



The Rev. A. P. Morres mentions one killed on the water at 

 Clarendon Park, and now preserved at the house. Mr. Ponting 

 tells me that Sir H. Meux's keeper shot a good specimen on the 

 Kennett near Lockeridge, in February, 1886. The Marlborough 

 College Natural History Reports show that one was killed at 

 Mildenhall in February, 1870, and another at Axford in January, 

 1871 ; but wherever sportsmen are accustomed to shoot wild 

 fowl they meet with it from time to time, associated with the 

 Common Wild Duck, Teal, and Widgeon. 



In France it is Canard a lomgue queue ; and in Italy, Anatra 

 di coda lunga. 



189. WILD DUCK (Anas boschas). 



Though rapidly becoming more scarce under the present 

 system of draining, this is still too common a bird to require 

 comment on its appearance and habits. It breeds on a pollard- 

 tree or ruined wall, as well as on the ground, and (as Selby 

 pointed out) is careful to cover the eggs with down when it quits 

 the nest for food. This may be partly to keep them warm during 

 her absence, but still more to hide them from the sharp eyes of 

 the marauding Carrion Crow or other evil-minded thief who may 

 be prowling about. It is the Gemeine-ente, ' Common Duck,' of 

 Germany ; ' Le Canard sauvage ' of France ; the Grds-And, or 

 ' Grass-Duck,' of Norway ; the ' Stock-Duck ' of British North 

 . America ; and whether in India and China, in the Ionian Islands 

 and Malta, in Northern Africa and Egypt, or in Greenland and 

 America, it is always the Common Duck of the country ; so that 

 the numbers of this universal and familiar friend must be, could 

 a census be taken of it, something prodigious. But when we 

 reflect that in the active days of the Lincolnshire decoys over 

 thirty thousand birds were sent to London in one season from 

 one district only, and of these productive returns the Wild Duck 

 formed the main staple, we can only marvel that the species is 

 Cordeaux's 'Birds of the Humber District/ p. 163. 



