Practical Game-Preserving. >44 



It is scarcely necessary to enumerate in detail the various 

 surroundings which go to make up a suitable place for 

 rearing and retaining wild duck. Wherever there is 

 reasonable freedom from disturbance, such places as 

 possess larger or smaller expanses of the moist and marshy 

 ground to which wild duck are attached, together with one 

 or more sheets of water of even very moderate extent, 

 it is possible to rear and to retain these waterfowl. 

 Naturally, the features of the neighbouring country must 

 be of a character agreeable to the duck, and the mere 

 possession of a small pool lying in a hollow, with dark 

 and sombre surroundings, is not in itself of sufficient 

 attraction or suitability to warrant an attempt being made 

 to maintain wild duck thereon. These birds possess a 

 natural disposition to roam somewhat far afield; but, on 

 the other hand, they cling closely to their home and feed- 

 ing-place, provided always that it possesses the natural 

 attractions. These may be summed up as reasonable 

 quietude from March to September, a fair-sized sheet of 

 water, with some other small waterways connecting with or 

 adjoining it, and a certain amount of marshy ground, 

 tolerably well clothed with reeds, rushes, flags, and other 

 marsh-growth, such as are suited to these waterfowl. 



Wherever the foregoing conditions are existent, wild 

 duck may be reared and retained in numbers suitable to the 

 extent of the water and lands available. If the place or 

 places be exposed, and in no way shut in by trees or wood- 

 land, they are less favourable than if there be a good 

 surrounding growth of willow and other trees and shrubs 

 which flourish in damp soil and situation. It will be seen 

 that the conditions favourable to the maintenance of wild 

 duck are forthcoming in almost innumerable instances, so 

 that the extension of wild-duck rearing presents no great 

 difficulties, and has much to recommend its increased 



