ON THE BREEDING OF CERTAIN WATER-FOWL. 447 
luck, some of the eggs being sucked by rooks, and the young 
which were hatched being killed by rats as soon as they were 
born. In 1874 the young were hatched May 28th, and were soon 
able to walk about, as the next day the old birds brought their 
young ones down from the pond, on the banks of which they were 
hatched, to the one nearest the house. In this year four eggs 
were hatched out of five, though three of them were rolled into 
the water the day after they were sat, and I do not know how 
long they were in the water before I took them out. I have so 
frequently been unlucky in having eggs sucked by rooks that this 
year I took the eggs away, and only replaced them when the old 
bird began to sit. Since this time both the original pair and their 
offspring have bred regularly every year, though this year, partly 
owing to my being away, only one young one has been reared. 
As I mentioned, both in ‘ The Zoologist’ for 1875 and in Mr. 
Dresser’s ‘ Birds of Europe,’ some of the young birds have orange 
legs and feet, and what ought to have been the pink part of the 
bill is orange. ‘This was the case with the first bird reared and 
with the only one reared this year, though in no other respect do 
they differ from their orange-legged parents. 
The Bernicle, Bernicla leucopsis, has never bred here, though 
for almost as long as I can remember there has been a pair of 
these birds on the pond. Mr. Sclater, however, states that it 
“breeds freely in captivity.’ This has not been at all my 
experience, and although it is mentioned as occurring in the 
earliest lists of the birds in the Gardens (1833), he only cites one 
instance of its breeding there, May 23rd, 1848, when young ones 
were bred. , 
The Canada Goose, Bernicla canadensis, bred freely on the 
pond in my father’s time, as they did in some neighbouring ponds, 
but were killed at the same time, and for the same reason, as the 
Egyptian Geese, and I have never renewed the stock, as they are 
rather larger birds than I care to have. 
I have a pair of Brent Geese, Bernicla brenta, now on the 
pond, but they have not shown any inclination to breed. This is 
the first year, however, I have tried them. 
A pair of Common Sheldrakes bred here regularly for some 
years in my father’s time, but he never had the young ones 
pinioned, thinking they were so tame that they would stay; but 
they never did so after the following spring. I have now only 
