OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 399 



this Duck often wanders far from the water, visiting stubbles, the 

 open parts of forests, meadows, and even gardens. Its vegetable 

 diet may be said to range from grain and grass to acorns ; its 

 animal diet from insects to fish. The note of the Mallard is 

 the all-familiar quack ; but in the pairing season both sexes 

 utter sounds impossible to express on paper. This Duck is 

 remarkably wary and well able to take care of itself in the British 

 Islands ; but in India it is said to be less wary and suspicious, 

 allowing a near approach. Many Mallards and other Ducks are 

 caught by the natives of India in a very ingenious manner. The 

 fowler enters the pool and covers his head with a gourd or basket, 

 then carefully walks under water towards the unsuspecting birds, 

 the gourd apparently floating along the surface. As soon as he 

 reaches the Ducks they are adroitly pulled under one by one, 

 killed at once by a sharp twist of the neck, and slung into a cord 

 worn round the waist. A skilful man will sometimes capture as 

 many as twenty Ducks during one trip. Sometimes the skin of 

 a Pelican is used instead of a gourd. 



Nidification. — The Mallard is an early breeder, in England 

 commencing to lay in March or early April, but a month or six 

 weeks later in Scotland. Further north, of course, the bird is 

 later, not beginning to lay until June in Finland, for instance ; but 

 in Cashmere it is also late, laying in May and the first half of 

 June. I am of opinion this species pairs for life, and the duck 

 and drake are considerably attached to each other even in winter. 

 The nest is built in a variety of situations, and not by any means 

 always in the neighbourhood of water. I have seen the nests in 

 open parts of the forest on ground covered with bracken and 

 studded with clumps of thorn-trees, and also on the barest ground 

 under heather on small islands in the Highland lochs. Occa- 

 sionally it is built in the deserted nest of a Crow or a Rook, under 

 the shelter of a wall of peat, in a boat-house^ in a hollow tree- 

 trunk, or on the top of a pollard ; more frequently in a field of 

 corn or a hedge bottom. Very often it is made amongst long 

 coarse grass and sedge by the waterside. The nest is usually 

 made in a hollow scraped in the ground and filled with dry grass, 

 bracken, leaves, or any vegetable refuse easily obtainable, and 

 warmly lined with down and a few small feathers from the breast 



