78 ANATID.T.. 



one paragraph I must make exception. I allude to that at p. 

 168, where, in the imaginative strain of Buffon, the " un7iatural 

 barbarism" of a male is protested against as caring nothing for 

 his progeny. Surely it is, instead, natural, and agreeable to the 

 instinct with which the bird has been endowed, that the male 

 leaves the whole charge of the young to the female. As a differ- 

 ence of opinion has existed on this subject, it may be stated, in 

 the words of Mr. Selby, that " the care of the young devolves 

 entirely upon the duck, and is not partaken by the male as Wil- 

 son and others appear to think ; and this fact," he observes, " I 

 have had frequent opportunities of verifying" (p. 308). Accord- 

 ing to the observation of Mr. Wm. Sinclaire, at his pond at the 

 Falls, where several of tliis species were always kept, the mallards 

 never sat upon the eggs, and were not only pugnaciously disposed 

 towards each other in spring, but annoyed the ducks by their 

 pertinacious pursuit, sometimes even causing them to leave their 

 nests. A nest here, in 1845, was made on the ground in an 

 open meadow, and contained eleven eggs. On being visited seve- 

 ral times in the absence of the duck, the eggs were always con- 

 cealed from view, by having been covered over with mosses. 



A gentleman informs me that once when in Kensington Gar- 

 dens, London, he had seen a person throw a stone at a brood of 

 wild ducks that wounded one of them, when, to his surprise, the 

 mother, on perceiving her young one hurt, rushed at and pecked 

 it so \Tiolently as in a few minutes to deprive it of life. He saw 

 an almost similar instance in St. Jameses Park, but the young 

 was able to make a better fight, and when attacked by its mother, 

 it, after a slight struggle, succeeded in freeing itself. A trivial 

 incident of an opposite kind was thus noticed in Mr. Templeton^s 

 journal : — August 31, 1819. I was delighted, to-day, with seeing 

 an instance of thought and affection in a duck. One of her 

 young ones having fallen on its back in a dish of meat, the mother 

 uttered a scream and ran to its assistance, and lifting it gently in 

 her bill, placed it on its feet." In the amiable light of a peace- 

 maker — as separating two fighting redbreasts — a duck will be 

 found rioticed in the first volume of this work (p. 166). 



