196 NATURALISES CABINET. 



Cursory observations. 



of flying and swimming, so they are in general 

 birds of passage, and it is most probable, perform 

 their journies across the ocean as well on the 

 water as in the air. Those that migrate to this 

 country, on the approach of winter, are seldom 

 found so well tasted, or so fat, as the fowls that 

 continue with us the year round : their flesh is 

 often lean, and still oftener fishy; which flavour 

 it has probably contracted in the journey, as 

 their food in the lakes of Lapland, from whence 

 they descend, is generally of the insect kind. 



As soon as they arrive in this country, they 

 are generally seen flying in flocks to make a sur- 

 vey of those lakes where they intend to take up 

 their residence for the winter. In the choice, of 

 these they have two objects in view; to be near 

 their food, and yet remote from interruption. 

 Their chief aim is to choose some lake in the 

 neighbourhood of a marsh, where there is at the 

 same time a cover of woods, and where insects 

 are found in great abundance. Lakes, therefore, 

 with a marsh on one side, and a wood on the 

 other, are seldom without vast quantities of wild 

 fowl ; and when a couple are seen at any time, 

 that is a sufficient inducement to bring hundreds 

 of others. The ducks, flying in the air, are often 

 lured down from their heights by the loud voice 

 of the mallard below. Nature seems to have 

 furnished this bird with very particular faculties 

 for calling. The windpipe, where it begins to 

 enter the lungs, opens in a kind of bony cavity, 



