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among heath, but always near the water. Instances are recorded of its being built in the fork 

 of a tree ; and a Duck has been known to occupy the deserted nest of a Crow. The eggs, from 

 five to ten, are pale dull-green or greenish white, two inches and a quarter in length, and an inch 

 and nine twelfths in breadth. When incubation commences, the male takes his leave, though 

 he keeps in the neighbourhood, and, joining others, undergoes his annual moult. The female 

 sits very closely, and rather than leave her charge, will often allow a person to approach quite 

 near. One day while searching in the marsh at the head of Ducldingston Loch for some 

 plants, I was suddenly arrested by observing among my feet some living creature of considerable 

 size. Perceiving it to be a Duck, I instantly, perhaps instinctively, pounced upon it. But 

 thinking the eight eggs a sufficient prize, I threw the poor bird into the air, when she flew off 

 in silence. Frequently in leaving the nest she covers it rudely with straw or feathers, probably 

 for the purpose of concealing the eggs. The young are hatched in four weeks, and, being 

 covered with stiffish down, and quite alert, accompany their mother to the water, where they 

 swim and dive as expertly as if they had been born in it. The mother shows the greatest 

 attention to them, protects them from birds, feigns lameness to withdraw intruders from them, 

 and, leading them about from place to place, secures for them a proper supply of food. Some- 

 times the young birds are destroyed by pike, or fall a prey to rapacious birds. They are 

 extremely active, and elude pursuit by diving and remaining under the water, with nothing 

 but the bill above. I once came upon a whole brood of half-grown ducklings in a ditch, when 

 in a moment they all disappeared under the water; and although I searched everywhere for 

 them, 1 did not succeed in tracing a single individual. When .the young are well grown, and the 

 female replumed, the male commonly joins the flock, and they continue together. Several 

 flocks often unite ; but generally these birds are not very gregarious. Being highly and justly 

 esteemed for food, Mallards are shot in great numbers, and are plentiful in our markets. 

 Although they are of a more elegant form, and much more active than the Domestic Ducks, the 

 latter often resemble them so closely in colour as hardly to be distinguishable. Once in the 

 Outer Hebrides, when journeying across a moor, I met with a pair in a small lake overhung by 

 a rock, from which I could easily have shot them, had I not supposed them to be tame Ducks 

 that had strayed to a distance from the huts, some of which were about half a mile distant. 

 The young obtained from eggs hatched by domestic fowls generally make their escape. The 

 Mallard has been known to breed with the Muscovy Duck and several other species." 



Dresser found the nests in Finland, usually close to the water or the edge of the marsh, and 

 most often under the shelter of a bush. The eggs are sought after with those of the other 

 waterfowl by old women who make a scanty living by bringing these eggs to the market for 

 sale. Our friend Mr. Benzon describes its breeding-places in Denmark as the " inland lakes, 

 morasses, and other similar places, the nest being placed on an island or at the water's edge, a 

 hole being scratched in the soil, generally under shelter of a bush or some high bunch of 

 herbage, and lined with grass and clown;" it sometimes, however, though rarely, breeds in a 

 hollow tree or an old nest of some other species ; and he once found it breeding in a deserted 

 Crow's nest high up in a tree at Dyrehaven. It is met with breeding throughout Europe, from 

 the far north down to North Africa, more numerously, however, in Northern and Central than 

 in Southern Europe. The breeding-season is from early in April to late in May ; and from seven 



