2 
MALLARD. 
minutes had passed Avhen a duck eame in sight before I had time to fire a shot, and alighting on the ice glided 
right up to within a yard of where I had taken up my position. Jumping up suddenly, the bird was confused 
and, fluttering off, offered an easy shot, being conspicuous in the gloom from the light reflected by the snow 
and ice. 
At some of the Highland lochs in the most unfrequented parts of the eountry there are many of these birds. 
On the 4th of July, 1808, while having our lunch on the hanks of Loch Doula in Sutherland, my old black 
retriever “Nell” amused herself by exploring the dense reed-beds and slades near at hand, and captured and 
brought out sixteen full-sized birds, all in good condition. On the 26th March, 1869, a gale blowing from the east 
and the water rough and unfitted for shooting, we went out in the large punt on Loch Slyn, near Tain in the east 
of Ross-shire, and as we were returning after finding no birds, I happened to catch sight of the head of a Mallard 
in the heather on the hank of the loch. Though the punt was rolling in the swell, the gun was immediately 
turned on the bird, as I was anxious to get clear of the charge, which I imagined might possibly he damp 
from the spray that had broken over the boat *. As the trigger was pulled, the Mallard at which I aimed rose 
on wing, and at least a hundred others sprung up from the cover close at hand just beyond the hank. Luckily 
the one I first observed was in about the centre of the floek, and the charge passed through the thickest part 
of the dense mass. Many fell in the heather, rushes, and long grass, where they could not he followed ; but we 
managed to secure about five-and-twenty, and as many more escaped in the thick cover, as my retriever had 
been left at a farm by the loch-side, as I had not expected she would be required. Before the punt had been 
stowed away a number of Grey Crows were observed, flying, screaming, and quarrelling near the spot where the 
shot had been fired. On returning it was ascertained that these destructive marauders had discovered and 
dragged out at least a dozen of the wounded birds that had managed to evade capture. 
I seldom observed large floeks of Mallard on the Norfolk Broads in the east of the county, forty or fifty 
being sometimes seen, and on only one or two occasions as many as a hundred having been noticed in company. 
My observations in this part of the country only commenced in 1870, and probably the numbers of fowl had 
diminished as gunners had increased. In the autumn of 1873 a Mallard, knocked down while flying over the 
deep water on Breydon, dived among the green weeds and did not reappear on the surface; after waiting some 
time, and no signs of the bird being observed, the men commeneed to stir up the weeds with their oars near 
where the bird had dived. After about half an hour’s work he was discovered entangled in the strands of the 
weeds, which were exceedingly thick on that part of the water. 
"While at Innerwick, in Glenlyon in the west of Perthshire, we ascertained that numbers of Wild Ducks 
visited the marshes near the river during the night ; there being little chance of obtaining a shot, traps were 
set in the pools of water the birds frequented. On reaehing the spot the first morning it was evident that two 
birds had been taken, though only their beaks remained in the traps, the birds having been dragged away by 
some one who had observed them fluttering while attempting to escape. The farmer on whose ground this 
oecurred was greatly put out, and wished me to request the minister to take the matter up and examine all 
those in the parish who were likely to be the delinquents, and make them confess their iniquity. I did not, 
however, take any steps to discover the culprits, but the traps which were set proved very successful, and they 
were never interfered with again. 
I kept several pairs of Mallard in the enclosure with a pond in our garden at Brighton ; no young were 
ever reared, and all in course of time died off after living in eonfinement for five or six years. I often watched 
one or two of the drakes in the summer running rapidly after the blue-bottle flies hovering round the pond and 
catehing them with the greatest agility ; they would also hunt out the hlack-heetles from the grass in moist 
parts of their ground, and gulp them down with evident relish, as though they were dainty morsels. 
* This was in the old days of muzzle-loaders. 
