CHAPTER III. 
BREEDING. 
Quietude and privacy are essential if it is desired to 
breed any kind of waterfowl. ‘The amateur must not expect 
to be able daily to visit the nest of a Carolina or Rosy-bill, 
as he would that of his prize Cochin or Game fowl. Ducks 
are extremely wary, and will forsake a nest in many instances 
if the eggs are touched, or the surroundings disturbed. No 
matter with what care the amateur may have prepared tempting 
nest boxes beautifully furnished with straw, nine times out of 
ten the duck will choose the bare earth under a bunch of 
heather, or a quiet corner behind the gnarled stump of an 
old willow tree. If this be the case, let her alone. Should 
the banks be bare and destitute of cover, some substitute may 
be supplied by placing a pair of hurdles covered with straw, 
a little barrel laid on its side containing some dry rushes, and 
concealed by a couple of larch boughs stuck in the earth, an 
empty hen-coop with a sheaf of straw set upright before the 
opening, with such other contrivances as the ingenuity of the 
fancier may suggest to him, as likely to encourage incubation. 
Some breeds of ducks will seek their nests in the hollow stumps 
of trees, others have been known to dig a hole in the thatched 
roof of their cabin, and there deposit their eggs. In the 
Zoological Gardens of Paris, a pair of pinioned Mandarins 
nested in the gutter of one of the principal aviaries twelve to 
fourteen feet above the ground. 
Speaking of the acclimatisation of wild fowl M. H. de la 
Blanchére recommends that large straw baskets shaped like 
