THE WILD DUCK. 
85 
them so engaged in various places. The Curator of the Boyal 
Botanic Garden, Belfast, informs me that they eat of them so 
voraciously there as to become surfeited, and to be obliged to sit 
down and rest, apparently sick from being overgorged. Another 
observant person has often known ducks to be “ all but choked” 
from the quantity of slugs they had eaten, so that their owners, 
believing them to be at the point of death, killed them, that the 
birds might not be lost as food. Limax agrestis , the chief 
destroyer of the vegetation of the garden, &c., is their chief prey. 
So well is their feeding on slugs established here, that there 
are some persons who refuse to eat of these birds on account of 
the foul diet (as they consider) on which they have fattened. 
When proceeding from Utrecht to Gorcum, on the 2nd June, 
1826, I was surprised to observe among the reeds, in the wild 
fens, numerous long narrow hampers, like those used in the north 
of Ireland to pack potatoes in for exportation, and, on inquiry, 
learned that they were placed there for wild ducks to breed in, so 
that the young brood might be secured before they were able 
to fly. 
This species is fully as plentiful in Ireland as in England. If 
the observations of Sir William Jar dine* and Mr. Macgillivray, 
respecting the numbers seen in winter, apply to Scotland, the 
wild duck is more abundant during that season in Ireland than it 
is there. One eloquent paragraph from Wilson must be here 
given. He remarks : — “ This is the original stock of the common 
domesticated duck, reclaimed, time immemorial, from a state of 
nature, and now become so serviceable to man. In many indi- 
viduals, the general garb of the tame drake seems to have under- 
gone little or no alteration ; but the stamp of slavery is strongly 
imprinted in his dull indifferent eye and grovelling gait, while the 
lofty look, long tapering neck, and sprightly action of the former, 
bespeak his native spirit and in dependence.” t 
* 'British Birds/ vol. iv. p. 109. 
t ‘ Amer. Ornit./ vol. iii. p. 141. Jardino’s edit. 
