HABITS AND MIGRATIONS OF WILDFOWL. 5 



approaching punt-gun. These are the bii'ds which, feeding by 

 day, suffer most, but as soon as the older birds arrive — though 

 they too, with the young birds, resort at first to day-feeding — it 

 only takes a very short time to put them well on the alert, and 

 after that not a Wigeon will be found on the oozes, channels, or 

 mudflats during daytime, except under the circumstances of 

 exceptional stress of weather, when, weakened and reduced by a 

 state of semi-starvation, they are glad to avail themselves of 

 either diurnal or nocturnal feeds. I am aware that this does not 

 harmonize with much that has been written on the subject, but I 

 can only say that it is what actually takes place in the tidal 

 estuaries of Northumberland. 



Though the earliest comers are mostly young birds, yet there 

 are some old ones amongst them, and as early as Sept. SOth I 

 have seen the white speculum in the wings of some "Wigeon, a 

 sure sign of maturity. 



Wigeon feed on grass, and they can frequently be seen during 

 the day paddling and swimming along the margins of a mudbank, 

 pulling off the salt-grass fi'om its edges. 



In the autumn of 1881, a small flight of Wigeon were ob- 

 served to alight on the ornamental water in Roker Park, in the 

 suburbs of Sunderland. The pond was frozen at the time, and 

 one of the birds (a female) was taken at night in a net. A drake 

 was procured from Norway, and in the summer of 1885 the duck 

 made a nest, laid seven eggs, and hatched out five young. 



They are all healthy and flourishing as I write. On July 2nd, 

 1886, the same old duck was again missing. She had made a 

 nest on the side of one of the artificial channels in the park, and 

 though she laid eight eggs they never hatched. Strange to say, 

 about October 16th ult., another wild female Wigeon joined the 

 original seven, and has remained with them ever since ; they are 

 all quite tame. About the same date, — viz. the 16th October 

 last, — an immature Goldeneye suddenly appeared on this piece of 

 water ; it too has remained ever since, and appears to have taken 

 up its quarters for good. At present it will not actually come 

 close up to one, as the Wigeon do, but swims about and dives 

 unconcernedly within a few paces ; nor does it associate with any 

 of the other dxicks on the pond, but always remains alone. 



Now as to Mallards ; an old drake shot September 20th this 

 year did not show a trace of green about his head, and the 



