THE BIRDS OF NORTH KENT. 49 



watched for some time a party of about half-dozen males and 

 females. Although disturbed twice, they returned again to the 

 sheet of water on which I first found them. A thick-set duck, 

 somewhat smaller, or shorter than a Mallard when in flight, its 

 red head, black gorget, lavender-grey body, and black tail-quills 

 make the drake an easy bird to identify. The ducks flying with 

 them looked a very sombre brown in their contrast to the light 

 grey body-plumage of the drakes. In flight the birds utter a 

 curious note, bearing no resemblance to the quack of a duck. 

 My own attempt at the phonetic spelling reads " quer-r-r-k." 

 To see one of the drakes on two later occasions, when I again 

 visited that particular sheet of water, the second or third weeks 

 in May, dozing peacefully on the surface of the centre of it, 

 seemed to me sufficient proof that its partner was sitting in some 

 secluded corner near by on a full clutch of eggs. 



Passing from these possible breeding members of the Duck 

 family to those three species of which I have actually handled 

 eggs, the Mallard, as may be supposed, is the commonest of 

 them. A resident species all the year round, it may neverthe- 

 less be an open question whether those flocks seen upon the river 

 and the marsh waters during the winter necessarily contain 

 amongst them the birds which pair in the spring. Whether 

 that be so or not, there are at any rate many more birds about 

 at that season than have ever nested in the district, and a large 

 proportion of the flocks must be winter visitors which scatter and 

 leave in the early months of the year. It is not necessary to go 

 much into detail as to the nesting of this species. There is a 

 considerable breeding population, which does not by any means 

 confine itself to the marsh-levels. Indeed, one keeper informed 

 me that more pairs nest on the uplands than on the low ground. 

 A good many take shelter for this purpose in one or two rough 

 pieces of woodland, making their homes under bushes, in much 

 the same sort of site you would expect a Pheasant to choose. I 

 had one quite startling experience of the variety of positions 

 chosen by them. A very bulky Magpie's nest at the top of a tall 

 stout blackthorn (a characteristic feature of one piece of wood- 

 land) excited my curiosity by the wide openings at each side of 

 the canopj 7 °f sticks, and by some white feathers projecting over 

 the edge. The blackthorn was something like twenty feet high, 



