BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 267 
A Wild Duck's nest in 1844 is recorded as on a horizontal 
branch of a tree eighteen feet above the River Cluden.* 
Richard Bell discovered a nest with nine eggs in 
May, 1861, amongst the small branches of a thorn tree, 
at eleven feet from the ground and about forty yards from the 
River Esk, on the farm of BiUholm (Westerkirk). The nest 
was compactly built of birch twigs, and lined with down, 
and was apparently the work of the bird itself and not the 
old one of any other kind."t The old nests of Carrion- 
Crows or Wood-Pigeons are occasionaUy utilized, and doubt- 
less such a nest formed the foundation of the one described. 
Light is thrown upon the problem of how the ducklings 
reach the ground from such elevated situations, by the foUow- 
ing note by Mr. R. Service : "At RaehiUs to-day (July 16th, 
1887) a keeper showed me a wild duck's nest from which a 
few days ago a second brood of young had fledged. The 
nest was about twelve feet up in a cleft of an ivy-covered ash 
tree, and the old duck the keeper asserted was seen to bring 
the young down on her back to the pond at the tree foot.'^f 
Mrs. Pollock writes me that her mother, Mrs. Leny, was 
witness to a somewhat similar performance at Dalswinton 
m the early fifties. Other observers have stated that the 
ducklings simply throw themselves to the ground from such 
nesting-sites and are seldom injured by the fall. 
The extensive hand-rearing of MaUard, in which there is 
(unintentionally or not) a strong strain of the domestic 
duck, is probably the cause of the almost perennial records 
of finding nests with eggs. A Wild Duck was found sitting 
on thirteen eggs at Duncow (Kirkmahoe) on December 23rd, 
1907, and similar abnormal dates are constantly reported. 
Mr. J. J. Armistead has stated that at his fish-hatchery 
at Newabbey (Kirkcudbrightshire) he was compeUed to 
give up keeping ducks owing to the injury they did to the 
fish. " Besides taking young trout they eat a great quantity 
* Dumfries Courier, May 6th, 1844. 
t Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin., 1862, Vol. II., pp. 420, 421. 
t R. Service, MS. Diary, July 16th, 1887. 
