76 
ANATIM. 
seen these dive but never come up again. Yarious instances of wild 
ducks building in trees are on record ; thirty feet being the greatest 
height of the nest from the ground mentioned in the latest work 
on f British Birds/ Some years ago, a nest was formed in a tree 
in Hillsborough Park, about forty feet from the ground, and in 
1848, a magpie's nest was taken possession of as the site for an- 
other, although it was very near the top of a fine silver fir, one 
of the loftiest trees in the demesne, and not less than eighty to 
ninety feet in height. This tree, too, was at least a furlong dis- 
tant from the lake or water of any kind. The nest was disco- 
vered by a boy who is in the habit of annually destroying the eggs 
of “ winged vermin" (hawks, crows, magpies, &c.), and who 
ascended the tree to this one for the purpose, but, when near it, 
was astonished to see a wild duck instead of a magpie fly off. On 
examination of the nest, he found it to contain fifteen eggs. When 
my informant visited the place soon afterwards, the climber was 
sent again to the nest to see what progress had been made,, and 
the egg-shells, broken, &c., in the peculiar manner of those from 
which young birds have made their exit, only remained. None 
of the ducklings being found on the ground around the base of 
the tree, it was presumed that they had all been carried by their 
parent in safety from their lofty birth-place. Even a wild-duck, 
the occupant of this nest, might be able fairly to boast, that 
“ Our eyrie bnildeth in the cedar’s top, 
And dallies in the wind, and scorns the sun.” 
I have been credibly informed that in the demesne at Castle 
Code, county of Eermanagh, a tree, selected by a wild duck for 
building in, was that on which a large bell, in daily requisition at 
particular hours, was hung : the nest was placed about fifteen or 
twenty feet above the ground, and the eggs were incubated for 
the usual period, but without success. 
On the borders of Lough Neagh, great numbers of these birds 
breed ; and some of the best haunts there were, until a few years 
ago — and perhaps are still — annually resorted to for the unsports- 
manlike purpose of “ flapper-shooting," i. e., killing the young 
birds when nearly full grown, but before they are well able to fly. 
