XXIII. 

 ANAS BOSCHAS. (linn.) 



Common Wild Duck, Mallard. 



Though the larger proportion of the Mallards that visit 

 us in winter retire farther north to breed, yet numbers of them 

 remain in this country, throughout which they are widely 

 dispersed ; several of them resorting wherever large tracts of 

 undisturbed water or marshy ground is to be met with (the 

 little islands occurring in the midst of such, being their parti- 

 cular choice) ; a single pair sometimes frequenting small 

 ponds and streams of water, when the margins afford cover 

 of reeds or rushes, amongst which to make their nest ; in 

 open moorlands their eggs are frequently found in whins or 

 heath. They have even been known to lay them in the hollow 

 of decayed pollard trees, some feet high ; Mr. Tunstall men- 

 tions one at Etchingham, in Sussex, which was found sitting 

 upon nine eggs, on an oak tree, twenty-five feet from the 

 ground, certainly a most strange deviation from their usual 

 habits, and scarcely to be credited, were it not well attested. 

 The nest is of grass, with a few feathers, in which are laid 

 from ten to sixteen eggs. The young ones take to the water 

 soon after they are hatched, but are a long time in arriving 

 at maturity, during which they are most assiduously and afTec- 

 tionately attended, and guarded by the old bird, which will 

 not allow itself to be driven from them, unless it can decoy 

 its enemy away by that means. — Fig. 2. 



ANAS CRECCA. (linn.) 



Teal. 



The Teal also remains in this country to breed, though in 

 a much smaller proportion than the last described ; like it, it 



