480 Anatidw. 



so abundant now. Harting observes that Ducks, when bent on 

 a long flight, do not all move through the air at the same 

 altitude, but some much higher than others; and large flights 

 generally seem to have a break in the centre, and present a 

 figure very much resembling the outline of North and South 

 America as it appears on the map. When flying near the surface 

 of land or water, they are often in a confused mass.* Wilson, in 

 his ' North American Ornithology/ has described an amusing 

 and ingenious method of taking Wild Ducks adopted by the in- 

 habitants of India and China, where the sportsman, covering his 

 head with a calabash or wooden vessel, wades into the water, 

 and keeping only his head thus masked above it, advances 

 towards and mixes with the flock, who feel no alarm at what 

 they look upon as a mere floating calabash. He is thus 

 enabled to select his victims, whom he seizes by the legs, and, 

 pulling them under water, fastens them to a girdle with which 

 he is equipped, thus carrying off as many as he can stow aw;iy. 

 without exciting distrust and alarm amongst the survivors. -f- 

 The Rev. A. P. Morres says the Wild Duck is very common near 

 Salisbury, and breeds there in considerable numbers. In the 

 winter he has seen more than a hundred rise from a part of the 

 river called the 'Broad,' close to Longford Castle. The Marl- 

 borough College Natural History Reports speak of a flock of 

 seventy seen at Ramsbury, November ]0th, 1876. Mr. Herbert 

 Smith, writing to me this spring (1887), says : ' We have had a 

 very fair amount of Wild Ducks on the Bo wood Lake this year. 

 One morning I saw, I should say, about five hundred at one 

 time; and among them I noticed the Common Mallard, Teal 

 Pochard, and Tufted Duck.' Mr. Hussey-Freke, writing from 

 Hanningford Hall, in the extreme north of the county, says : 

 'We get a few wild fowl at the Thames.' And of single speci 

 mens I hear in all quarters. 



In Italy it is Anatra salvatica reale; in Spain and in Portugal. 

 Pato real. 



' Birds of Middlesex,' p. 228. 



f Selby's ' Illustrations of British Ornithology,' vol. ii., p. 307. 



