IN KENSINGTON GARDENS 399 



and numbers of young ducks did they kill and 

 carry off. The broods gradually dwindled down 

 from ten or a dozen to two or three ; and one old 

 duck in particular, which had hatched off all her 

 eggs safely, no sooner had them afloat than the 

 crows began to molest them, and she lost all but 

 one. So long as they were swimming about they 

 were safe, but as soon as they landed, and got a 

 little way from the edge of the water, down would 

 come one of the crows with a long "stoop" like a 

 hawk, and cut off the retreat of some luckless duck- 

 ling before it could regain the water, and notwith- 

 standing a charge from the old duck, who would 

 bravely rush to the rescue. The nest of this duck 

 was in a singular position. Close to the basins in 

 Kensington Gardens, as everybody knows, there 

 stands a huge trunk of what was once a fine elm 

 tree. It is 22 feet in height, and now serves for 

 no other purpose apparently than to hang the 

 Royal Humane Society's drag on. At the top of 

 this great stump the duck referred to had her nest, 

 andat this height from the ground fourteen ducklings 

 were hatched. How the mother would get them 

 down was a problem. It was thought she might 

 perhaps take them one by one in her bill, or, like 

 the guillemot and other cliff birds, carry them 

 singly in the hollow of her back between the 

 uplifted wings, skimming down to the water with 

 them ; but one of the park-keepers, who was desired 

 to watch, assured the writer that the old duck 

 "called them off," and that they took "headers" 

 one by one on to the gravel path below. He fully 



