448 THE ZOOLUGIST. 
one pair in the pond, and the female has regularly nested and laid 
for the last three years; but she has not been wise in her choice 
of a place for making her nest, for instead of choosing a rabbit's 
hole, as the old pair always did, she has chosen a dark corner of 
an outhouse which I generally use for keeping mangolds in during 
winter. Soon after the mangolds are all gone, in the spring, she 
takes possession of the darkest corner to make her nest in, and 
the eggs have always been taken or the young killed by rats. 
The young are by no means difficult to bring up, and if left with 
their parents, who are much better mothers than the common 
Wild Ducks ever are, may usually be successfully brought up. 
At many of the farm-houses near the coast young Burrow Ducks 
are brought up with the ordinary tame ducks. 
Both my father and I have always had Widgeon, Mareca 
penelope, on the pond ever since I can remember, but they never 
bred till 1872, when, on the 27th June, they brought out their 
first brood, as recorded by me in ‘The Zoologist’ for that 
year (p. 3244), and they have bred regularly ever since; but 
as I do not catch the young ones and pinion them, they 
generally depart in the following spring—that is, those which 
do not fall victims to the Herring Gulls in their earlier days, 
for these gulls are terribly destructive to all young wild-fowl as 
well as to eggs. 
Both my father and myself have frequently kept Pintails, 
Dajfila acuta, on the pond; but though both male and female cross 
readily and constantly with the Wild Ducks, I have never known 
them behave as they ought and breed together. 
Wild Ducks, Anas boschas, have bred regularly ever since 
I can remember. ‘The first eggs are always laid about the middle 
of March, showing that the 1st of March is by no means too soon 
for the close time to begin. ‘The only dates of hatching I have 
are—1864, April 13th; 1865, April 12th; 1866, April 28th (the 
latest I have); 1876, April 16th; and 1878, April 14th. In other 
years I have missed taking a note of the appearance of the first 
brood, owing to absence from home or some other cause; but 
I have notes of Wild Ducks sitting hard which would correspond 
very closely with the above dates of hatching. With one exception 
(April 24th) Mr. Sclater’s dates are all later than mine, being all 
in May. I remember that, when I was a boy, one or more Wild 
Ducks always nested on a garden-wall fully twelve feet high, but 
