SEPTEMBER. 
311 
ducklings were hatched^ and grew well through the summer. 
One nightj in October^ he heard them making a great tumult^ 
and flying about ; and determined on securing them in the 
morning : when morning came, however^ he could find only 
three or four, which he caught, and clipped their wings : the 
others had got away, but one of them was seen on the river 
for some days. Before this, they had manifested the native 
wildness of their disposition, roaming to a distance : he once 
thought he had lost them, having missed them for some 
hours ; and suspecting that they might have got into a brook 
which runs through his farm, and joins the river a short 
distance, in which direction they had last been seen, he 
went to a little sand-beach, which, in such case, they must 
have crossed, and there he found their tracks ; by following 
which he discovered them in the brook, the old hen terribly 
alarmed on the bank, and loudly calling them out. 
C — The ducks, in general, appear to be inhabitants of a 
cold climate. 
F, — By the thickness of their plumage, which is remark- 
ably soft and compact, they are protected from the effects of 
the inclemencies to which they are exposed. There is pro- 
bably no warmer covering in nature than the soft, close, 
downy plumage of waterfowl, resisting the transmission and 
consequent abstraction of the animal heat, most effectually. 
Accordingly, we find them abundant in the high Arctic 
latitudes, during the short summers ; the species being, in 
many instances, common to the northern regions of both con- 
tinents. This fact, the community of species of Arctic birds, 
seems a strong argument in favour of the existence of a polar 
continent, or archipelago of islands, which would allow these 
birds food and rest during their summer excursions across 
the Pole, suppose from Spitzbergen to Melville Island. The 
geese, it is true, are capable of long flights ; but the fresh- 
water ducks, though of swift wing, do not appear to be com- 
