THE WIGEON. 
101 
have all seen the species feeding by day,, but consider that it is 
more than doubly busied by night. Often., in fine weather, flocks 
will float idly about during the day where food is abundant ; but 
during the night, all is activity with them. They become rest- 
less so soon as the shades of evening begin to appear, equally on 
the inland lakes, where they remained undisturbed all day, as on 
the marine bay, where persecution was their lot. Under all 
circumstances, they then leave their day-haunt on flight to their 
night feeding-ground. The more frequent whistle of the male 
bird, and — as it were — answering, purring cry of the female by 
night, evince that the birds are then most actively alive. The 
fowlers often remark at such times : — “ Hear them answering each 
other and judge, from the whistle being unreplied to, or its 
being frequently uttered and answered, whether there be few or 
many birds together. Some of these observations have been made 
in consequence of Mr. Waterton's statement, in his essay on the 
wigeon, that a number of these birds remain during the night on 
the lake at Walton Hall, in consequence, as he considers, of their 
feeding on grass during the day. His observations are, doubtless, 
critically correct as to his own locality ; but, owing to the protec- 
tion afforded there, we may fairly regard his wigeon as in a semi- 
domesticated state. Under similar circumstances, I have frequently 
seen wigeon grazing like geese by day. The bird wisely accom- 
modates itself to circumstances.* It is very interesting to observe 
it feeding where no enemy is feared. The last place of this kind, 
in which wigeon came under my notice, was in retired and most 
picturesque little bays in the island of Islay, where no human 
eye but my own was upon them at the time. Being afloat, they 
would commence their repast when the tide had sufficiently fallen 
to admit of their reaching the Zostera, and at low water they were 
* Mr. St. John, in his ‘ Tour in Sutherland’ (vol. ii. p. 21), remarks : — “Unlike 
the mallard and the teal, both which are night-feeding birds, the wigeon feeds at any 
hour of the day or night indiscriminately.” In Belfast Bay, both the mallard and 
teal have been observed by the three most intelligent wild-fowl shooters (who were 
questioned on the subject) to feed by day at all times that they are there during the 
season. The latter end of February and beginning of March — except during frost — 
is the period when they are chiefly in the bay by day. They are now all paired, 
though sometimes in large flocks. 
