Ferruginous Duck 
39 
For breeding, the Ferruginous Ducks seem to select somewhat small sheets of 
stagnant water with muddy bottoms, and well furnished with sedge and water plants such 
as Stratiotes, Nymphcea, Trapa, &c. 
Naumann states that they arrive at their breeding places in Germany in small companies 
at the end of March, there being more males than females. 
" It is seldom before the end of April," he says, " that their behaviour becomes more excited, whilst, 
divided into separate parties, the males begin to solicit the favour of the females and swim after them 
continually. As generally one female is the choice of several of the males, the latter soon come to blows 
with one another, and such fierce fights arise between them that often in their squabbles amongst each 
other they peck at and skirmish about to such an extent that they are blind and deaf to their surround- 
ings, and would disregard all danger if the watchful females, calmly looking on at the fight, did not attract 
the attention of the combatants to the threatened danger by a gentle cry of warning. But if the 
danger passes without having further consequences, the fight generally begins again immediately; the 
ponds therefore on which they breed are extraordinarily animated, for amongst the various species which 
breed in our land no others are so quarrelsome and make so much noise, uttering at this time their 
rattling, loud cry all the time. The female often has to seek refuge from the crowd of pursuing suitors 
in the thickest clumps of reeds ; but once the choice is made, she slips away with her chosen mate from 
the place, and both then remain far from the scolding company of the others, seeking out retired, 
lonely spots amongst thick undergrowth, where they will be little noticed by the others, under over- 
hanging banks, and other hiding places, whilst the rest keep to the middle of the open water until all are 
mated. Thus finally only the odd ones remain, which, not infrequently, then disturb the mated pairs, but 
as a rule soon go altogether away. The birds are now always seen in pairs, the female always flying on 
in front, and soon their frequent presence at some particular spot shows the nesting-place they have 
selected. 
" Their nests are always found in rather hidden-away places, now on a small mound of sedge, or of a 
so-called ' Kufe ' (tub), now at the edge of a small island, or of an overhanging bank, hidden between 
sedge and growths of willow, now at the edges of the dykes which generally run beside the ditches at 
regular intervals through the middle of carefully-managed fish-ponds, and sometimes at the side, in some 
chance hollow of the ground, or also on a little mound of earth, and even at some little open place among 
a thick growth of reeds, but never very deep in these. The nest is everywhere placed so that the female 
can get to it immediately, at any rate on one side, after swimming, or only needs to walk a few steps to 
do so. It is never very far from the water and in the more swampy patches of sedge ; the nest is placed 
wherever there is most water. In places where the nest does not rest altogether on the ground the stalks 
and leaves of plants which grow under water, and are to form the foundation of the structure, are bent 
down and trodden under into the size the nest is intended to be, and it is always in the middle of such a 
clump, so that the surrounding sedge, reeds, &c., which are not bent down should serve to hide it, as 
often the ends of these plants cross over it and form a sort of roof of foliage. Many are made so that 
they can only be reached from one side, and that always the water side. In the building the male is 
certainly in the vicinity, but has not been seen to take an active part in it. The female gets the materials 
for building from the surrounding growth — from dry stalks of grass, leaves of sedge and reeds, dry sticks 
of grasses, meadow grass, and occasionally a certain amount of moss ; all these different materials are 
carelessly woven together — first the coarsest ones ; the finer are kept for the inside, and all formed into a 
wide, deep basin. 
" The mated pair remain inseparable during the time of laying, and when the female is on the nest 
the male is not far off, so that he can warn her of any approaching danger immediately, so that at the 
right moment she can creep away and get off unseen, or, at the worst, fly away altogether. When therefore 
a solitary male is found, at the end of May, often at the same place, the nest is generally to be found quite 
close by. At about this time a complete sitting may be found in a nest, and this, as a rule, consists of 
nine to ten eggs, less often of twelve." 
If the first nest is destroyed, like most of the other species the Ferruginous Duck will 
lay a second sitting of not more than fiive eggs, but if she has sat on her first nest for some 
