176 Notes on Wild- Fowl in the [Sess. 



seemed none the worse of their fall, when they were quickly 

 gathered together hy the parent hird, and led to water near 

 by. Ducklings when newly hatched are the most flexible 

 and active creatures I know. A nest being cut over in a 

 field of hay I had the eggs set beneath a hen in a coop. The 

 first indication I had of them being hatched was on going to 

 the coop one morning, when I saw one of the ducklings 

 sitting on the top of it quite two feet from the ground. At 

 Tulimet, in Perthshire, the keeper fed ducks all the year 

 round at a pond near his house. Ducks which bred far 

 away brought their young to the pond whenever they 

 hatched. One, which was known by a mark, hatched 

 between two and three miles off on the moor among the 

 heather. In twenty-four hours she arrived at the pond 

 with her progeny. 



The golden-eye is a very handsome bird. Large numbers 

 frequent Duddingston Loch and many other sheets of water all 

 over the country during the winter months. Females and 

 young birds are not very wide-awake, but an old drake is 

 difficult of approach. He is three years old before he acquires 

 full plumage and the spot on his cheek becomes pure white. 

 I was anxious to procure an adult specimen for a collection, 

 and many a journey I had to Duddingston before I succeeded. 

 Fortune favoured me at last, and perhaps the way I managed 

 to secure him may be here worth recalling. Going down by 

 Prestonfield House, I got on to the bridge which spans the 

 St Leonard's railway, from whence a good view of the 

 surface of the loch can be obtained. There are few finer 

 sights in the environs of Edinburgh than this view of the 

 loch, with its rugged background. A number of swans 

 proudly swimming on the surface of the water add to the 

 picturesqueness of the scene. Large numbers of coots and 

 water-hens were swimming about in conscious security close 

 to the shore, while out in the middle of the loch numbers of 

 tufted ducks, pochards, scaup and golden-eye, filled up the 

 picture. A fine old drake of the last mentioned attracted my 

 attention, and I was anxious to secure him; they were so far 

 from the land that this seemed wellnigh impossible. My 

 walking about by the water's edge made them swim towards 

 the opposite side, and when sufficiently near the bank I 



