148 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



night, particularly if you can get the birds between you and 

 the moon. It is a great assistance in night shooting to paste 

 a piece of white paper along your gun-barrel, half-way down 

 from the muzzle. In the stillness of the night the birds are 

 peculiarly alive to sound, and the slightest noise sends them 

 immediately out of shot. Their sense of smelling being also 

 very acute, you must always keep to leeward of them. The 

 mallard duck is more wary than any other kind in these respects, 

 rising immediately with loud cries of warning, and putting all 

 the other birds within hearing on the alert. I have seen the 

 wild swans at night swim with a low cheeping note close by 

 me ; their white colour, however, makes them more difficult to 

 distinguish than any other bird. It is quite easy to shoot ducks 

 flying by moonlight, as long as you can get them between you 

 and the clear sky. Practice, however, is required to enable the 

 shooter to judge of distance at night-time. 



I have frequently caught and brought home young wild 

 ducks. If confined in a yard, or elsewhere, for a week or two 

 with tame birds, they strike up a companionship which keeps 

 them from wandering when set at liberty. Some few years 

 back I brought home three young wild ducks : two of them 

 turned out to be drakes. I sent away my tame drakes, and, 

 in consequence, the next season had a large family of half-bred 

 and whole wild ducks, as the tame and wild breed together 

 quite freely. The wild ducks which have been caught are the 

 tamest of all ; throwing off all their natural shyrtess, they follow 

 their feeder, and will eat corn out of the hand of any person 

 with whom they are acquainted. The half-bred birds are some- 

 times pinioned, as they are inclined to fly away for the purpose 

 of making their nests at a distance : at other times they never 

 attempt to leave the field in front of the house. A pair or two 

 always breed in the flower-garden. They appear to have a 

 great penchant for forming their nests in certain flower-beds, and 

 they are allowed to have their own way in this respect, as their 

 elegant and high-bred appearance interests even the gardener, 

 enemy as he is to all intruders on his favourite flowers. 



These birds conceal their eggs with great care, and I have 

 often been amused at the trouble the poor duck is put to in 

 collecting dead leaves and straw to cover her eggs, when they 

 are laid in a well-kept flower-bed. I often have a handful of 



