15° British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



reacli of a gun. I liave " stood flight " for them, but seldom with any success, 

 they never seem to follow exactly the same line on consecutive evenings, which 

 Mallard generally do. 



Mr. G. H. Caton Haigh says this Duck is one of the first to appear on the 

 Lincolnshire coast ; he has seen it in August on the marsh drains and creeks,* 

 (these early arrivals may be home birds). In the winter, and particularly during 

 " a blast," they are often fairly numerous on the coast. He has often met with 

 adult birds in pairs — of course young birds are much more often shot ; Tsut there 

 is not much difference in numbers between old males and females. It is a 

 tame bird, and when present on the coast many are shot by the fowlers. On the 

 Merionethshire coast he has only met with it, on one or two occasions, in flocks 

 of not more than five or six. 



The foreign birds are often late in leaving in the spring. I have seen a 

 flock on the Humber at the end of the first week in May. The handsome adult 

 male with a perfect crest is not common. Our gunners in the Humber distinguish 

 it as the " Brass-eyed Pocher," and I have never heard this name applied to the 

 Goldeneye. 



When living in Nottinghamshire, 1892 and 1893, near the Forest, I used to 

 see hundreds of Tufted Ducks on the Clumber, Thoresby, and Welbeck waters all 

 through the year. Several pair also used to frequent the neighbouring streams, 

 notably the Idle and its tributaries. The nest was placed usually close to the 

 water amongst rough vegetation, and sometimes got mown over when the banks 

 of the streams were opened out. The first pair recorded as nesting in England 

 were at Lord Galway's, at Serlby, in 1851, where the water is very much choked 

 -with rushes. They also nested at Osberton, in 1854. I saw several on the water 

 there in 1893, and they have now nested continuously for forty-three years. Mr. 

 Foljambe told me that the young almost invariably fell victims to the pike. 



Great numbers now nest in Norfolk, where it had probably been resident for 

 some years before having been actually recorded as nesting. The Rev. R. Lubbock 

 in his " Fauna of Norfolk," relates how Mr. Girdlestone, a thorough practical 

 ornithologist, and his boatman, when passing through a narrow strait flanked by 

 a wilderness of reeds, saw an old bird and three young close to his boat; this 

 was about half-a-century since. On Lord Walsingham's estate, where this species 

 is now so numerous, they are not known to have nested with certainty before 

 1873. The nest is generally well concealed and is merely a slight hollow; the 

 eggs from five to twelve of an olive-brown, much resembling in colour those of 

 the Pochard, they are, when the full complement is laid, buried in down of a 



* The earliest period I have shot it on our marsh drains was September 7th. 



