THE GADWALL. 185 
but weaker and sharper, and more often uttered. They are 
more talkative birds than either the Grey or Common Wild 
Duck, and when feeding in undisturbed localities keep up a 
perpetual chatteration, not unlike that in which the Mallard. 
occasionally indulges, but shriller, feebler, and far more incessant. 
They are very sociable birds, and may be found in company 
with every description of Water Fowl ; even amongst Geese, who 
commonly keep all the smaller Ducks at arms length, I have 
seen pairs of Gadwall swimming about quite unmolested. 
On land it walks extremely well, far more gracefully than 
do the Mallard or Grey Duck, and may often be seen trotting 
about on tiny smooth grass patches at the margins of broads, 
busily devouring grasshoppers, crickets, and (strange though 
it may seem, it is the fact) small moths and butterflies. 
When wounded and pursued, they dive easily, but are much 
more easily tired out and captured than the Grey Duck, or 
ad fortiorz, any of the Pochards. Altogether they are lighter, 
slighter, more agile, more graceful, and withal less robust birds 
than those that I class under restricted Azas, and in most res- 
pects are very close to the Teal, differing from these chiefly in 
the greater elongation of the laminz of the bill. 
For the table the Gadwall is generaly excellent, especially 
early in the cold weather, when, for a month or so, it has been 
living chiefly on rice, but occasionally, when vegetable food 
has been scarce, they have a rather marshy muddy flavour. 
SO FAR AS we yet know the Gadwall breeds nowhere within 
our limits, but as it breeds in Texas nearly as far south as 
Delhi, I cannot help suspecting that it may yet prove to breed 
in some of the Kashmir and other comparatively low Hima- 
layan lakes. | 
In Turkestan, Central and Southern Europe* and North 
America it breeds in May and June. The nest, a large coarse 
one of rush and grass, is placed in situations similar to that 
of the Grey Duck, asa rule, in clumps of low rush and water 
grass, and often under some overhanging bush or reed tuft. 
It is lined with finer grass, more or less intermingled with 
feathers, and as incubation proceeds in northern localities, a 
good deal of down is added; apparently in Southern Europe 
there is less of this used. 
The number of eggs seems to vary from six to thirteen, but 
about ten appears to be the average. The eggs are moderately 
broad, and very regular ovals ; the shell smooth, but without much 
gloss. In colour they vary from nearly white to a rich creamy 
yellow, occasionally with a greenish tinge. 
_ ™ And occasionally very much farther north, as Procter took a nest of this species 
in Iceland, 
Z 
